The committee met at 8:32 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Mike Starchuk. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

We are grateful to be meeting today on the legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on the terri­tories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples also known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

I would ask everyone else to consider the lands which they are on, where they work, live and play.

Our committee is currently seeking input on the next provincial budget. British Columbians can share their views by making written comments. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for in­put is Friday, June 16, at two o’clock. The committee is also meeting with British Columbians to hear their priorities.

All audio from our meetings is broadcast on our website, and a complete transcript will also be posted. We will carefully consider all input to make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be included in Budget 2024. The committee intends to release its report in August.

I will now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting with the Deputy Chair.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): I’m Tom Shypitka. I’m the Deputy Chair and the MLA for Kootenay East.

B. Banman: I’m Bruce Banman. I would be the MLA for the riding of Abbotsford South.

B. Stewart: Good morning. I’m Ben Stewart, the MLA for Kelowna West.

G. Chow: George Chow, MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview.

R. Leonard: Ronna-Rae Leonard, MLA for Courtenay-Comox.

A. Walker: Adam Walker, MLA for Parksville-Qual­icum.

H. Yao: Henry Yao, MLA for Richmond South Centre.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Karan Riarh and Jianding Bai from the Parliamentary Committees Office, and Danielle Suter from Hansard Services.

Each participant will have five minutes to speak, followed up by five minutes for questions from the committee.

Our first speaker is Anel Jazybayeva, Thompson Rivers University Students Union.

Anel, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

Budget Consultation Presentations

THOMPSON RIVERS UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS UNION

A. Jazybayeva: Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Anel Jazybayeva. I’m the [inaudible recording] for the TRU Students Union and an international student studying here from Kazakhstan as well.

[8:35 a.m.]

The last few years have been challenging for all British Columbians, including Thompson Rivers University students in the interior of B.C. Students have faced disruptions to education, employment and significant milestones of their early adult life due to COVID-19. There are also mounting hurdles in terms of affordability, leaving them vulnerable and in need of government support.

There have been three recommendations for the committee today that we believe will help students in these current times. Our first recommendation is to expand the B.C. access grant. Needs-based grants are vital to support students with financial need and increase participation, completion and workforce transition rates. There is extensive research that shows the effectiveness of needs-based grants in improving enrolment and degree completion.

The B.C. NDP introduced the B.C. access grant in Sep­tember 2020, providing up to $1,000 per year to students in longer programs and up to $4,000 to students in shorter programs. This program has been very helpful for post-secondary students, and we want to thank the committee for the past support of needs-based grants as a model.

However, starting this fall, the federal Canada grants program is reducing their support to a maximum of $4,000 per year from the current amount of $6,000. Therefore, our first recommendation for the B.C. government is to increase the value of the B.C. access grant in the 2024 budget to better complement the federal program and encourage post-secondary education, participation and completion.

Our second recommendation is the post-secondary funding review. In terms of background, the B.C. government announced a full review of the B.C. post-secondary funding system in spring 2022, the first in modern history. People in our community have been asking for this review for a long time and were very excited to see this announced, with the hope of meaningful reforms to the sector. However, since summer 2022, when the initial sector consultation happened as part of this review, there has been a complete lack of any further progress, as far as we’re aware.

Chair, your committee provided community-informed feedback for this review, but they have not been yet informed where this feedback has gone. Our recommendation is, therefore, to complete the review process with the hopes of working towards a more inclusive and accessible post-secondary education system.

Our third recommendation is to create a provincial strategy for international students. There has been a rapid increase in international student enrolment at TRU and across B.C., contributing significantly to institutional revenue in the broader provincial economy.

At TRU, we now have over 4,000 international students representing almost half of our on-campus student population, and there have been numerous benefits to our institution and the community with these students, including both economically as well as culturally. But there have also been challenges that students have raised in terms of their own experience, as well as concerns from the broader community in areas such as housing. So despite the significant role of international education in our community and economy, the sector lacks a broader strategic plan.

The previous provincial strategy for international students, released in 2012, focused on maximizing economic benefits and attracting more students. B.C. needs a new strategy that ensures that international education benefits institutions, communities and the province as a whole.

Our final recommendation, therefore, is to develop a new provincial strategy for international students to maximize benefits while providing support and ensuring economic stability.

Thank you so much, and I’m happy to take any questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation this morning, Anel.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate it.

I’m looking at the number you’re presenting, which is actually saying that 4,100 are international students, and you’re representing approximately 10,000 students. Does that mean that 40 percent of your student population is actually international?

A. Jazybayeva: Yes. This is correct.

H. Yao: I have a quick follow-up. I understand you’re saying that Thompson Rivers University relies quite heavily on international student tuition fees. Does that mean Thompson Rivers University also has an active recruitment program with international students? My question right now is: does it actually stop domestic students from accessing some of the classes due to a limited number of seats?

[8:40 a.m.]

A. Jazybayeva: I’m so sorry. The network has been a little bit weak.

Can I please ask you to…?

H. Yao: Yeah. My question right now is: is there an active recruitment strategy at Thompson Rivers University? Does it create barriers for domestic students to participate in certain programs with limited seats?

A. Jazybayeva: As far as I understand, your question is…. TRU is now actively recruiting professors. Is that affecting the domestic students who are not eligible for the program? Is that correct?

H. Yao: Well, I guess, international students and do­mestic students are all competing for a limited number of seats. So I am wondering. Is there any kind of an issue around that area?

A. Jazybayeva: That’s a good question.

Honestly, I’m not sure. I will be happy to follow up with you regarding that.

H. Yao: Okay.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation.

Just on recommendation 2, the funding review. I guess communication has been stalled since last summer. It has been a year. Maybe explain that frustration. What sectors are needed to be involved in that process of that review, and when would you like to see that completed?

A. Jazybayeva: That’s a good question.

We want to see the review happen for a couple of reasons. The big ones are…. The review process has been started but not finished. There has been a huge contribution from the members of our community, from faculty, staff and students. They would like to see the results. There have been….

Also, the TRU funding level is quite low. So there has been a huge interest in seeing the review happen in terms of the sections that have to be reviewed.

Honestly, we didn’t include that part on purpose. The B.C. government has to have the full consultation about what areas this funding review should include and what it should not. There are obvious reasons such as housing, for example, for students.

Yeah. It would be great to see the review happen.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay. Thank you.

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation. I hope you can make out what I’m saying.

I think you said that half the student population on campus at TRU is international students.

A. Jazybayeva: That’s correct.

G. Chow: Okay.

You also advocated for a review of the provincial strat­egy for international students. I think that’s a good suggestion. Thank you for your presentation.

What’s your opinion about international students in terms of contributing to your campus life? You’re at TRU, I assume.

A. Jazybayeva: Yes. That’s a great question.

As I said, almost half of our on-campus student population is international students. They contribute signifi­cantly, economically and culturally, to our university life. International students here are some of the most active students on campus. They contribute significantly to our on-campus life, I would say. As an international student myself, I can believe it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Well, thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Anel.

A. Jazybayeva: Thank you so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Diamond Obera from the Kwantlen Student Association.

[8:45 a.m.]

Diamond, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is now yours.

KWANTLEN STUDENT ASSOCIATION

D. Obera: Awesome. Good morning, everybody.

First, I wanted to say thank you to the committee for allowing me to speak today on the issues facing post-secondary students in B.C. and putting forward my three recommendations. I am joined today by our VP.

My name is Diamond Obera. I am the policy and political affairs coordinator at the Kwantlen Student Association. I am joined today on camera and am also followed by my vice-president, external affairs, Jasmine Kochhar. Without further ado, I will move to my three recommendations.

First, I wanted to note that the Kwantlen Student Association, along with the Alliance of B.C. Students, joins in sharing the disappointment in the 2023 B.C. budget. We believe that it missed the mark in addressing some of the issues that students brought forward in the previous budget consultations over the years.

Without further ado, I will go into my three recommendations.

The first recommendation pertains…. We’re recommending that the B.C. government keep the 2 percent cap on international student tuition moving forward. According to the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training, in B.C., there are more than 143,000 international students. This is a sizeable amount, compared to other provinces in Canada. We believe that the international students in B.C. bring a lot of economic prosperity to the province.

Furthermore, the average international student tuition fee rates for a bachelor of arts degree at the University of B.C., for example, in 2017-2018 was $28,000. But by 2020 and 2021, the tuition had increased to $38,000. This is an increase of 39 percent over four years.

It’s important for international students that there is predictability when it comes to how much international student fees increase. That’s why we’re coming forward with this recommendation, as domestic students are able to enjoy a 2 percent cap on their tuition. We believe that the same should follow for international students, as international students pay significantly more for their fees. That’s the first recommendation.

Moving on to the second, we’re recommending that the province commit to annual funding for the running of sexualized violence prevention offices, programs and initiatives at post-secondary campuses across British Columbia. Sexual violence is more prevalently experienced among people that identify as women, 2SLGBTQIA+, peo­ple with disabilities and Indigenous peoples. We believe this is a very important issue that the province should tackle.

Also, 71 percent of students have either experienced or witnessed unwanted sexualized behaviours in a post-secondary setting. We believe that this issue is very prevalent, and it needs to be addressed by the province.

Moving on to my third and final recommendation, we are recommending that the province develops a framework in dealing with the issue of student housing, speci­fically a framework that deals with on- and off-campus housing for post-secondary students. We are aware of the instrumentally higher tuition fees international students pay. For example, in August of 2022, rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Metro Vancouver rose $147 from $2,029 to $2,176. Right now, the average rent in Metro Vancouver is $2,330.

This leads to Facebook Marketplace renters essentially exploiting university students, especially international students that pay instrumentally higher tuition fees. This also means that for a lot of international students that work multiple part-time jobs, they are unable to focus on their studies. That’s essentially the reason they came to Canada in the first place.

[8:50 a.m.]

We believe the British Columbia government should have a specific focus on the framework of how, essentially, to deal with this issue going forward.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Diamond.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Just on international students, we hear it time and time again about putting a cap on and being a little bit more compassionate to international students as far as fees go.

You mentioned 150,000 or 143,000 international students in the province, and you alluded to the fact that perhaps B.C. has got some of the highest enrolment of international students in Canada. Why would that be, if our tuition rates are so high? What brings these international students to B.C.? Is it the quality of education? Is it the location? In your opinion, do you know why we get so many international students?

D. Obera: That’s a great question. From my experiences, personally, as a former international student, and having had a lot of international student friends, we find that B.C. is very attractive, especially for its cultural background and its diversity, perhaps, compared to the rest of Canada. Up on that list among Canadian provinces, of course, is Ontario, which also shares some similarities with ethnic diversity with B.C.

I would also point to the presence of, perhaps, some family members that have also been here. Personally, in my situation, in my experience as an international student, one of the things that attracted me to B.C. in the first place was the fact that I already had family members here. So it is essentially the culture around the diversity that we already have in B.C., but it also relates to the pre-existing family relationships in the province.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): So it’s fair to say that international students feel more at home in British Columbia than any other jurisdiction?

D. Obera: Yeah, that would be it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for that question.

Diamond, I just wanted to expand on it. You made a comment that there are more international students in the province of B.C. Can you give us a relationship to what may be found in Quebec or Ottawa or the Maritimes or other provinces in the country?

D. Obera: I have the data here somewhere. I will try to bring it up. I believe that in the data I came across, Ontario was ranked first, followed by B.C. I believe Ontario had upwards of 200,000 full-time international students, to be specific. I believe Quebec ranked third on that list.

I apologize. I don’t have the data right in front of me, but I can make sure to forward that to you in my written presentation.

M. Starchuk (Chair): That’d be great.

Any other comments or questions?

B. Stewart: Diamond, I just wanted to ask you about your second recommendation about funding for making certain that there’s access to help in terms of sexualized violence and funding. I thought that that was already being done by the universities. Could you expand on just what’s needed or what more is needed than what’s being done, or is it not being done at all?

D. Obera: Yes, absolutely. I would absolutely love to.

First, I do want to commend the province in the efforts it put out to come up with a sexualized violence policy. Essentially, the policy specifically encourages universities to have their own in-house, on-campus sexualized vio­lence policy. We do appreciate the efforts that the province put forward to come up with a policy and also to encourage universities to tackle the issue on campus.

[8:55 a.m.]

Specifically, my recommendation is calling for more funding for not-for-profit organizations that already do some work with the school directly or the student association, to essentially enable them to come on campus perhaps more often, to set up tables and talk directly to students, with face-to-face conversations and in events with students, to encourage them to first educate them about issues.

What we find is that a lot of students just are not taking the initiative, or they’re just not familiar with how harmful the things they say or the things they do could be. Essentially, going back to my framework, we’re recommending that the province commit to annual funding, specifically to the not-for-profit organizations, to help them in the facilitation of on-campus work to educate students on sexualized violence.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Diamond, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

Our next presenter is Dave Shannon, Council of Canadians, Terrace chapter.

Dave, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or answers.

The floor is yours.

COUNCIL OF CANADIANS,
TERRACE CHAPTER

D. Shannon: My name is Dave Shannon. I’m representing the Terrace chapter of the Council of Canadians. I am the energy and climate chair for our small chapter. I’ll be talking today about three recommendations to the standing committee.

The first one is old-growth forest deferrals. We can ap­preciate the need for First Nations endorsement of changes to land use and resource access on their unceded public land base, but in many ways, the government has downloaded difficult decisions to those Indigenous communities. Faced with limited revenue options, they often find themselves in a difficult position, reluctant to let go of logging opportunities for their business arms or of options for future revenue-sharing that might emerge.

Old-growth forests are essentially non-renewable. We must save what is left if we are to protect species dependent on them, such as caribou, goshawks, murrelets, countless lichens and other species we’re not even aware of yet. That includes saving any big, low-elevation, awe-inspiring tree stands that are left everywhere in the province, accessible to the organisms that need them and to people that want to get that old-growth experience without having to travel to Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island.

Our request is for the B.C. government to offer First Nations incentives to approve of old-growth deferrals, whether in the form of carbon credits or of enhanced revenue-sharing from undeferred areas, or a similar mechanism.

My second point is on fish and wildlife management. Across the province, regional fish and wildlife entities like the Skeena region continue to operate with a skeleton staff and budgets that are never large enough to undertake any new or research projects. The same is true for the parks branch, which have taken over former forestry campsites in smaller, accessible parks that were not well looked after and that remain in that same low-priority condition. Our second request is for increased funding for fish and wildlife management.

The third subject is human rights and substance abuse. There is no detox or management centre in northwest B.C. The nearest detox is in Prince George, nine hours distant from Terrace on the medical bus. Admission is not immediate, and the client may have to wait several days until a bed is available. There is a need for detox beds for men and women.

If the client chooses to take the next step of entering a treatment centre, there is usually another wait for admission. The client often returns to the same environment — which may not be supportive of recovery — until a bed is available, which could take weeks. There are often wait times to see counsellors who could offer support.

There is no second-stage treatment in the North for women who have completed an initial treatment program. While there is a recovery house for men in Prince Rupert, there is nothing for women. This is a human rights issue.

[9:00 a.m.]

Many women successfully complete treatment and re­turn to Terrace, with optimism for continuing their recovery. However, they often lack appropriate supports, and it’s difficult to obtain affordable housing.

It’s difficult to obtain affordable housing. They often have to live with others that are using substances. Shelters are low barrier, and although they may be admitted, they might have to share a room with others who are not in recovery.

Many women find themselves in a crisis soon after they come back home from the treatment centre. Without adequate supports, many relapse.

A recovery house would support women in their chosen goals to upgrade their education, consider employment programs, improve life skills and reunite with their children. Recovery houses prevent relapse and assist women to have a fuller, healthier life.

The results of gaps in the continuum of care for addictions and mental health can clearly be seen on the streets of Terrace, with increasing numbers of homeless people.

Our third request is for funding for a detox centre for men and women and a recovery house for women.

Those are my three recommendations.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much, Dave, for your presentation this morning.

I have a question with regards to…. You had made a comment about recovery houses. Are we talking about residential recovery houses that fit within the ALR, and if so, is your community in favour of embedding those into the neighbourhoods?

D. Shannon: I must admit that I’m not the expert on this topic. Our group has submitted these comments and allowed me to present.

I could refer to an expert with our organization that I could ask the question of. Valerie Wright is her name, here in Terrace.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Is she with you right now, Dave?

D. Shannon: No. I was told this is a one-only session, so I couldn’t invite any guests.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right.

Are there any other comments or questions?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Dave, for the presentation.

On old-growth logging deferrals, on the coastline and the wet temperate zone, old-growth trees could be 250 years old. In the Interior, it’s a lot less because of forest fires and insect kill and stuff. It’s about 140 years for a definition of old growth. Given the fact that we’re seeing more and more forest fires due to climate change, we need to manage those forests in a good way so that we reduce the risk of a forest fire in the Interior.

What are your thoughts on…? How do we mitigate…? How do we structure forest management around old-growth trees? In the Kootenays, say, a 140-year-old tree is not uncommon. It pretty much makes up the landscape, but it definitely needs to be managed. How would you recommend that we handle that?

D. Shannon: Well, I do know that if you clearcut a stand of old-growth forest, you’ll probably never get it back.

My experience…. I’m not a forester myself. Again, this is someone from our organization with the experience. I saw huge stands in Australia of broadleaf cedar trees, which is a different type of tree than we have in British Columbia. As soon as they removed those forests, they never recovered.

They generate their own climate. It’s important to keep them around just to be sure that humans are also protected from the climate change that could occur. I think it’s important to hang on to all the old growth we can find in the province. Our quota should be much higher than it is.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): So no management, I guess, is what you’re saying. Just leave the old growth where it is; 140-year-old stands will now turn into 150, 160 and 170 years old in the Interior, which would increase the risk of a forest fire dramatically, I would argue. There’s lots of debris that lines the forest floors, from pine needles and all that other stuff, and it increases the fuel load in the Interior. Is your solution to not touch those?

D. Shannon: No, sorry. I would suggest selective logging, which would remove valuable trees from a certain portion. Within 30 years, I’m told, you would have the same amount of timber regrow.

I’m not suggesting no management. I’m just suggesting greater allotments of deferred forests.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions or comments?

[9:05 a.m.]

B. Stewart: Dave, your second point about increasing funding for fish and wildlife. Could you just expand a little bit on where you would see the resources allocated?

D. Shannon: Boy, this is another case of me not being the expert. We have a fellow in our organization that has 50 years with fish and wildlife management. I could give you his name. I can’t answer that question directly myself.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Thank you for your presentation.

There are a couple of things, if you wouldn’t mind, Dave. You have people with the answers to the questions that just don’t happen to be here today. So if those could be submitted — specifically, the last one and the one around recovery houses that are residential.

D. Shannon: Could you repeat that once more, please?

M. Starchuk (Chair): If you could submit those to the committee, in the same way the original submission was sent in, as a follow-up, then those answers will get to the committee.

D. Shannon: Okay. I’ll see to it. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much, Dave.

Our next presenter is Astrid Niemann-Zajac, the First Nations Fisheries Council of British Columbia.

Astrid, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

FIRST NATIONS FISHERIES
COUNCIL OF B.C.

A. Niemann-Zajac: Great. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your time this morning.

My name is Astrid Niemann-Zajac, and I’m the director of partnerships and intergovernmental relations with the First Nations Fisheries Council of B.C. FNFC is a First Nations–led organization mandated by the Chiefs in Assembly to advance First Nations’ interests with respect to fisheries and aquatic ecosystems in B.C.

FNFC works to convene First Nations, elicit First Nations’ priorities and interests as well as distil these common interests to government to influence and inform decision-making, legislation development and delivery of programs and policies. The organization is of the perspective that shared and united priorities and interests are more effective in advancing First Nations–led perspectives and solutions. To be clear, as well, FNFC is not a rights holder.

FNFC currently has a joint MOU with the government of B.C. which prioritizes a shared commitment between FNFC and B.C. to work together to advance common priorities relating to fisheries and aquatic ecosystems in B.C. FNFC is also very grateful for the recent capacity support received from B.C. to implement the shared commitments outlined in our joint MOU.

Some of the key work that has been undertaken jointly by FNFC and B.C. includes the development of the B.C. water table and the First Nations water caucus to co-develop the watershed security strategy as well as support the co-development of the coastal marine strategy and the shaping of the recommendations included in the Declaration Act action plan.

Today I’m seeking to highlight one of the many priorities that FNFC is focused on — the recovery of wild salmon populations in B.C. — and how this relates to reconciliation. Broadly speaking, wild salmon are a keystone species for British Columbia. Their populations have declined around 90 percent since the 1970s.

Wild salmon continue to remain a key priority for British Columbians broadly. In a public opinion poll conducted by the Pacific Salmon Foundation in 2021, I believe, 86 percent of respondents ranked Pacific salmon as their number one environmental priority. Wild salmon are also a fundamental species for Indigenous culture, economy and traditions.

With this in mind, the recommendations that we have shared with you today include advancing biodiversity goals via Indigenous-led wild salmon conservation initiatives.

We are facing a critical state of wild Pacific salmon populations. Indigenous-led conservation initiatives, such as the idea of salmon parks, play a crucial role in protecting and restoring wild salmon populations through protecting spawning areas. By investing in the establishment of salmon parks, B.C. would be in alignment with its commitment to biodiversity, climate change and reconciliation efforts.

[9:10 a.m.]

Our second recommendation is the development and implementation of a provincial wild salmon recovery office. Challenges facing wild salmon are complex, requiring dedicated and coordinated support efforts. We’ve seen the success of Washington state Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office, which can serve as a model for B.C. Establishing a provincial wild salmon recovery office empowers community-driven conservation work and fosters collaboration across multiple jurisdictions.

Our third recommendation we’re proposing today is the allocation of a percentage of the conservation surcharge that is included in the purchasing of recreational fishing licences to be directed to First Nations–led organizations. This investment promotes economic reconciliation and resources that could be used to support First Nations–led stewardship initiatives.

In closing, thank you for the opportunity to present these recommendations. FNFC understands that these three recommendations will have a transformative impact on the well-being of First Nations communities in B.C., the health of aquatic ecosystems and the resilience of wild salmon populations. We’re eager to collaborate with First Nations in B.C. as well as the government of B.C. to ensure the success of these initiatives.

I am available for any questions that you might have.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Astrid.

R. Leonard: Good morning, and thank you for your presentation. You’ve raised a couple of new initiatives that I’m very curious for you to expand on.

One of them is around protecting spawning areas, the notion of salmon parks. We’re talking about land-based protection at this point. It’s something that has been a challenge for decades, so I’m wondering if you can expand on what that might look like.

Also, if you could describe a little bit about the governor of Washington state’s initiative that you’re suggesting is a good model.

A. Niemann-Zajac: Thanks. Just writing them down so I remember.

With your first question, spawning areas are really critical for wild salmon population recovery, so protecting those areas to allow for salmon to reproduce and to kind of continue to populate their populations is key in the restoration of salmon populations. So restoring habitat is not going to be effective by itself. You need to ensure that those spawning areas are kept safe as well.

This would likely include a multi-jurisdictional ap­proach. As you mentioned, this is kind of land-based, but there would need to be some fresh water initiatives as well associated with this, as well as connection back to the federal government, as well as connection back to the First Nations communities that a lot of these spawning areas are located in.

There has been a lot of fundamental research that has been undertaken and being led by a couple of Nuu-chah-nulth communities on the Island. That’s really laying the foundation of what this work could look like, so I would encourage you to look at the work they’ve released publicly, because it has a lot of recommendations and information specific to that area, but that could serve as a model for the broader implementation of the notion of salmon parks.

Then, in terms of your question around what the governor of Washington state’s office looks like around salmon protection, this is really a coordinating body to ensure that there is a holistic approach to salmon recovery. There’s one specific role that’s resourced by the state to coordinate stakeholders — and the tribes, as well, within Washington state — as well as the government to, I guess, share the responsibility for salmon recovery and restoration of salmon populations.

It’s really fundamentally a coordinating role that is centralized within the state office.

[9:15 a.m.]

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation.

In regards to allocation of fishing licence revenue, right now…. As you know, in March the angling licences went up about 10 percent, I believe, from $36 to $39. I think in 2024 it goes to $41. Right now, that surcharge and that revenue stream goes to the Freshwater Fisheries Society as well as the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. Is your proposal to share that revenue with those entities, and if so, what percentage?

A. Niemann-Zajac: My proposal is…. I’ve included it in the recommendations as well. It’s the written recommendations that we’ve submitted specifically for a portion of those resources to go towards the First Nations Fisheries Charity Fund Society. That’s a registered charitable entity that could receive those funds. That would enable First Nations–led stewardship initiatives. So it would be another organization.

I think we’re open to discussions around what that percentage would look like, but ideally it would look like…. I mean, in a perfect world for our perspective, it would be divided equally.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much.

B. Stewart: Can I just…? Just two seconds.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Two’s all you get.

B. Stewart: Okay. Could you clarify on the fees that you’re talking about splitting? Are you talking about provincial licensing on freshwater fisheries or tidal waters federally?

A. Niemann-Zajac: The provincial licensing.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Astrid, thank you very much for your presentation this morning and especially the last question on how we quickly snuck it in under the line. Thank you very much for your presentation.

Our next presenter is Nikki Skuce, Northern Confluence Initiative.

Nikki, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments from the committee.

The floor is yours.

NORTHERN CONFLUENCE INITIATIVE

N. Skuce: Great. Thank you.

Greetings, committee members and staff and fellow presenters. Thanks for this opportunity.

Northern Confluence is an initiative based out of Smithers on Wet’suwet’en territory that focuses on land use decisions in northern British Columbia. We strive for the greater conservation and protection of wild salmon watersheds.

We’re interested in taking this opportunity to further advocate for funding support for land use planning, conservation initiatives and mineral tenure reform. Amidst the biodiversity and climate crises, it’s great to see the province come on board and now have a mandate to achieve 30 percent protection of B.C.’s land base by 2030, including Indigenous protected and conserved areas.

There are a number of other mandate commitments that will help facilitate achieving this goal, such as land use plans and implementing the old-growth strategic review. I recommend that the province addresses three issues in the budget.

One is to increase funding for land use planning. There’s a commitment from B.C. to modernize land use plans to complete forest-level landscape plans throughout the province in ten years and to pilot water sustainability plans as well as implement the watershed security strategy, wild salmon strategy and coastal marine strategy. These range from strategic-level plans to tactical ones and have the potential to result in strong legal management objectives that respect provincial and Indigenous laws.

Progress has been slow to date, I would say, in part because of capacity gaps and lack of guidance as well as some of the longer timelines that co-development and stewardship can take. Given the demand and need for land use planning in this crisis and in regions that are facing cumulative effects, I think there needs to be additional provincial capacity through targeted staff and resources and support for Indigenous nations to create, negotiate and, ultimately, implement these plans. So I would recommend at least, sort of, tripling the budget in terms of land use planning.

My second recommendation is for funding support to Indigenous protected and conservation areas. Modernizing these land use plans as well as implementing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act will result in proposed new conservation areas.

[9:20 a.m.]

There are a number of Indigenous-declared IPCAs that occurred in the absence of provincial support and a clear process and regulatory regime, including the Meziadin here in Gitanyow territory, Dasiqox in Tsilqot’in territory, Ashnola in the Lower Similkameen and others.

Now that the province has a mandate to protect 30 by 30, there’s a need for provincial policy support to recognize IPCAs. We are also anticipating that the nature agreement with the federal government and Indigenous nations will result in the largest investment in conservation in B.C.’s history. While the bulk of that, I think, will be federal funds, there are also B.C. budget implications, including providing provincial support for Indigenous Guardians programs and for ongoing co-management of these new protected areas.

Lastly, supporting land use plans and new protected areas requires reforms to B.C.’s mineral tenure and compensation laws. Mineral tenures have been a barrier to conservation in the province, and there is really a need to modernize the Mineral Tenure Act to respect consent and today’s values.

The Mineral Tenure Act is currently the most inconsistent with DRIPA and still grants the same free-entry certificate as was issued when British Columbia was colonizing the province in the late 1850s. Fortunately, reform for the MTA is now in the DRIPA action plan and also the minister’s mandate. There will be need for funding to support Indigenous engagement in the law reform process.

Despite these reforms for future mineral claims process, there will remain a number of existing claims. For the province to support Indigenous and new protected areas to achieve these biodiversity goals, it will need to expropriate some mineral tenures and retire areas from further exploration.

Right now B.C.’s is a market-based approach to compen­sation, which can be extremely costly. We’ve seen examples of this, including, early last year, $24 million being paid to Imperial Metals for its mineral exploration rights to close the Donut Hole in Manning Park. There are several examples. In 2011, a $9.8 million settlement was with Cline Mining on coal licences in the Flathead.

We hope that B.C. reforms its mineral compensation regime to reduce the compensation barrier to Indigenous-led conservation by updating its law more than allocating a lot of funding to pay out these mineral claim holders. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation this morning, Nikki.

Comments and/or questions.

A. Walker: Thank you for…. They’re far-reaching, the suggestions, but they all work together very nicely, which I appreciate.

With the reform of the mineral tenure, obviously business predictability is important for our financial security in B.C. How do you suggest that the Mineral Tenure Act be reformed to minimize some of that compensation without creating a situation where we see investment leaving our province?

N. Skuce: Well, when I think in terms of the Mineral Tenure Act reform itself, I think it will provide even greater certainty if there is a clear pathway, because right now, there’s a lot of conflict that arises. We see that with Nuxalk kicking out Juggernaut. Right now there’s a court case happening with the Kitkatla.

I think that we need to modernize it so that there is clarity, and there seems to be support from the association for doing that. We know that really, it needs to be consistent with consent and co-management.

In terms of the compensation, we’ve done some research and shown…. There are a number of other jurisdictions and even some acts within B.C. that provide compensation for costs or compensation for specific purposes, such as conservation.

I don’t think that will…. Mining exploration is inherently risky. Very few actually make it to mines anyway. I think just making sure that there’s clarity and transparency and updating it. There’s such a demand right now for critical minerals that I don’t think the mining sector is going anywhere.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation, and just triggering what you just said, what other jurisdictions have changed their tenure framework?

[9:25 a.m.]

N. Skuce: Most in Canada. The Yukon right now is working on theirs. They did quite a hefty engagement process, and they’re about to update their mineral tenure regime. Previously, Quebec and Ontario…. I don’t think anyone has a cookie-cutter model for British Columbia. But many jurisdictions in Australia…. B.C. is lagging behind in terms of getting rid of the free-entry system. I don’t know if that’s helpful.

Then, in terms of a compensation regime, again, there are other models. In Quebec, when they updated their act, they compensate just for costs incurred. For example, municipalities and regional districts can create a moratorium around staking, and existing claims can be bought out just for costs incurred. There are several examples throughout the country.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments and/or questions?

All right. Well, Nikki, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

Next up we have Monika Bittel, Federation of Mountain Clubs of British Columbia.

FEDERATION OF MOUNTAIN CLUBS OF B.C.

M. Bittel: Good morning, committee chair and committee members. My name is Monika Bittel. I’m a director with the Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C. Our members engage in non-motorized back-country recreation, such as hiking, trail running, climbing, back-country skiing and snowshoeing. Many of our clubs also build and maintain trails throughout B.C. for public use.

Our recommendations to the committee focus on outdoor recreation opportunities and access. More specifi­cally, we are recommending increasing the operational funding and resources for B.C. Parks, for Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. and for the repair and maintenance of access roads to parks, recreation sites and trails.

Now, despite the recent budget uplift for both B.C. Parks and Recreation Sites and Trails B.C., there remain significant funding needs in our provincial parks and for recreation sites and trails outside of parks. This morning, I would like to highlight some of the ongoing needs, which are included in more detail in our written submissions, which we filed on June 8.

First, with respect to B.C. Parks, this year, B.C. Parks initiated recreational facility planning processes for three parks — Mount Seymour, Golden Ears and Cultus Lake — in part to address their high use levels. Among the recurring themes at the stakeholder workshops were the poor state of existing trails, signs and outhouses; the lack of outhouses and food caches in campsites; and the lack of accessible and inclusive facilities, including washrooms, parking, day use sites and trails.

While B.C. Parks advised that they have funding to start some priority projects in 2023, the start of other projects will depend on available funds and the availability of de­tailed plans, designs, assessment and Indigenous consultations, all which require time, staff capacity and resources.

There are many more parks throughout B.C. that are utilized or underutilized and would benefit from recreational facility planning processes, similar to the ones that we have participated in, to identify and to prioritize the development of recreational opportunities and accessible facilities. There are also many parks that still fail to reflect Indigenous history and interests. With increased operational funding and increased staff capacity, B.C. Parks will be in a better position to fulfill its mandate, including expanding recreational opportunities for our diverse and growing population and advancing Indigenous reconciliation.

[9:30 a.m.]

With respect to our second recommendation, similar to B.C. Parks, Recreation Sites and Trails has a huge backlog of maintenance work, and staff are overextended. With the recent funding boost, B.C. Recreation Sites and Trails is increasing staff capacity. Each district office will have a recreation officer and a recreation technician. That is good news. But even with this increase, staff capacity remains overstretched.

In the Squamish district office, for example, they’ve had a recreation officer and a recreation technician for several years. But they are overextended, trying to manage several hundred active sites and trails and trying to process applications from volunteers who wish to maintain and develop trails and sites for public use.

The federation, for example, is trying to develop a trail from the outskirts of Whistler to the Singing Pass in Garibaldi Park. We have the stakeholder approvals, and we’ve been invited to proceed with the volunteer partnership agreement with Recreation Sites and Trails. However, we have been unable to schedule a meeting with the recreation officer to review the documentation for the agreement. He’s just simply overstretched.

With increased operational funding and resources, Re­creation Sites and Trails B.C. will be in a better position to approve existing recreational facilities, engage First Nations and provide more timely responses to hundreds of applications for maintenance and development of trails and recreation sites for public use.

Our last recommendation. Without funding to maintain access roads for the purpose of recreation, access to valuable parks, recreation sites and trails in all regions of the province will continue to be lost, putting pressure on those parks, recreation sites and trails that remain accessible to the general public. Our submissions include ex­amples of such access roads, which are repeated through­out the province.

Thank you. Those are my submissions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation this morning.

First up is Ben.

B. Stewart: Monika, I wanted to ask you…. We listened to a lot of presentations in the past few years about increasing funding. I know there was a lift in funding last year. I guess my question is: is there an appetite amongst back-country users, like yourselves and the federation, to have some sort of structured fee system that would give the funds and the resources to the province to make this more sustainable?

In fresh water, in B.C., there’s a fee that’s on the fishing licences that goes to fund fish enhancement and hatcheries and things like that. Do you think that’s a logical way so that this question doesn’t have to continue to be asked, but as people continue to use the back country, there’s some sort of licence fee or something of that nature?

M. Bittel: Well, I know we’ve gone through these discussions in the past. It’s always difficult to try to consider how to license accessing back-country trails and sites. The trails themselves often are being developed by volunteers.

One of the concerns we’ve always had is that it raises the question of affordability. For back-country use, non-motorized, it’s almost the most affordable way for people to get into the back country. Certainly, when we’ve looked at this process in the past — for example, in the U.S. — we’ve often seen those fees increase steadily, which then makes it, again, an affordability question for many of the people trying to get out and engage in recreation.

I would say, though, that we already are having fees on provincial parks and many of the recreation sites and trails, so the question is: what are we actually proposing to do? What next step is there? We always have that concern. Are we going to be restricting access for the population who may not have the economic means to be able to get out into nature?

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions and/or comments?

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation.

Question: you want to see an increase in the fund for B.C. Parks. Do you have a figure?

[9:35 a.m.]

M. Bittel: Well, we have known that the various groups that have been working on this campaign for several years have always looked for having the budget increase to about $100 million for B.C. Parks. I believe most recently, for Recreation Sites and Trails, they got a funding boost. It would be good for them to be able to have a budget at least in the $20 million range. Their current budget is significantly less than that and much less than the budget for B.C. Parks.

B. Banman: Thank you very much for your presentation.

I’m curious with regards to tourism and, in particular, foreign tourism. I know that there are Europeans…. My grandson, for instance, likes to go hiking. He has hiked all over the world. Do you have any numbers on the economic impact that could bring into the province if we were to increase the funding levels that you have so that it makes it more accessible to even foreign travellers?

M. Bittel: In terms of the economic…. I don’t have the figures themselves. I know they’ve been generated by the tourism sector itself. I certainly have travelled around the world, and I would note that in many of the places I’ve travelled, they do make a distinction between foreign visitors and residents of British Columbia, keeping in mind that British Columbians already often pay taxes and therefore contribute towards the parks, which, of course, the foreign visitors don’t necessarily do.

In terms of having the actual figures, I don’t have them at hand. I can certainly provide some, but I don’t have them at hand at this time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you for that, Monika. If you could provide that to the committee by two o’clock on Friday, as the reminder that’s there.

M. Bittel: Okay. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Monika, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

Our next presenter is Coree Tull, B.C. Watershed Security Coalition.

Coree, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

B.C. WATERSHED SECURITY COALITION

C. Tull: Fantastic. Thank you so much.

Good morning. My name is Coree Tull.

I am really grateful to be joining you from the China Creek urban watershed situated on the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Coast Salish people.

I am the co-chair of the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition, and we represent 50 organizations and 255,000 British Columbians. I understand several of our members have presented to you in the past week or so. Today I want to join you to emphasize the urgent need for increased investment in the B.C. watershed security fund.

Healthy watersheds are the lifeblood of our province. They’re essential for human health, security, prosperity and reconciliation. Watersheds serve as nature’s defence against the climate crisis. Stream banks filter polluted runoff and provide sanctuary for salmon. Mature forests and wetlands act like sponges, purifying and retaining water when there is too much and then releasing it slowly when the water is needed most.

However, our watersheds in British Columbia are facing severe degradation. The cumulative impacts of human activities and climate change have taken a real toll. The climate crisis is a water crisis. We have witnessed devastating floods, droughts and fires, setting new precedents of destruction and loss.

As we speak, the northern part of B.C. is engulfed in flames, while just this last month, the southern part was struggling with flooding. These disasters have profound consequences for our drinking water, our livelihoods, health, food security and the well-being of our communities, especially Indigenous communities.

We witnessed the importance and benefit of investing in watersheds during the devastating floods in 2021. Following any big rain event, the Mackay Creek in North Vancouver would flood with water rising so rapidly it would spill onto the roads and into nearby businesses. Through dedicated work, supported by the healthy watersheds initiative, to restore, stabilize and monitor the Mackay Creek wetland just next to the creek, it recreated natural inflows and outflows from the creek and then into the wetland, so birds and salmon returned and water quality improved.

Then during the atmospheric river, the restored wetlands served as a really critical outlet that could absorb much of the excess water, which historically would have flooded nearby areas. It then was released slowly following that weather event. This is just one example of many across the province of really positive impacts when we invest in our watersheds in both urban and rural areas.

The challenges we face require more than the investments to date. For nearly a decade, the freshwater community in B.C. has been talking about the need for long-term, sustainable funding for our watersheds. Since 2019, members of the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition have tirelessly advocated for a sustainable annual investment in watershed security fund.

[9:40 a.m.]

The Select Standing Committee on Finance, you folks, have consistently recommended investments in watershed security, with your report last year calling for $75 million in sustained funding for the B.C. watershed security fund. Thank you for hearing our calls and our requests.

While we appreciate the significant investment of $100 million from the 2022 budget, it’s really just a kick-start for the watershed security fund, and it’s just the beginning of what is needed to implement a provincewide strategy and safeguard B.C.’s watersheds. The return from $100 million endowment will only provide an estimated initial $5 million per year for watershed projects — really a drop in the bucket of what’s needed.

To truly address the complex challenges our watersheds face, we need to establish a $1 billion watershed security fund. To achieve this, we call upon the provincial government to contribute an additional $300 million in Budget 2024. To establish a sustained endowment, we must leverage that funding one-to-one with the federal government and attract an additional $200 million from the philanthropic and private sector. By doing so, we can ensure the long-term sustainable funding necessary to protect our watersheds and, therefore, our communities.

B.C. has spent nearly $11 billion recovering from the effects of extreme weather in just the past few years alone. And this doesn’t include the recent floods and fires that are impacting our province right now. The costs associated with the climate crisis will only continue to rise unless we take a different approach.

British Columbia’s watersheds, our rivers and our lakes are vital to our local economies, our forests, our wildlife, food crops, cultural heritage and survival itself. Investing in our watersheds and natural infrastructure is not only essential for the health of our economy, but it also miti­gates the risks imposed by climate change on our communities. It supports industries, agriculture, tourism, breweries, and this is all that we rely on for clean water.

The watershed sector in British Columbia is a major employer and economic driver, generating over 47,000 direct and indirect jobs and contributing $5 billion in GDP. By investing in watershed security, we can create a thriving local economy of healthy communities and a more sustainable future.

The decisions that are made in this budget really hold the power to shape the future of our watersheds. So I really encourage you to demonstrate your commitment to watershed security in allocating $300 million to the B.C. watershed security fund in Budget 2024.

Thank you so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): And thank you, Coree, for the most enthusiastic presentation up to this point today.

H. Yao: Hi, Coree. Thank you so much. We really appreciate the things you’re advocating for.

I mentioned before that water security is society’s security. It is the foundation of everything we are championing for. I appreciate your talking about $300 million from the provincial government in the hope to secure another $300 million from the federal government.

I do have one…. Actually, I have two questions. The first question is: is there a desire for the formation of a water security strategy between the watershed security, working with people who work with aquifers around B.C., working with maybe even geothermal groups into finding a way to ensure that we have proper water protection, both during floods and droughts?

And the second question is talking about…. You had $100 million, which generated about $5 million per year, and now you’re looking for another $600 million. I assume your target is actually $1.5 billion, so you can have a regular $75 million interest ready to actually support the initiatives. Am I correct around that area?

C. Tull: Yeah, so the two questions there…. The first one…. If I understand your question correctly, no one watershed is the same, and the challenges that are impacting watersheds are really going to require local-level decision-making and planning. The watershed security strategy that this government is developing will require sustainable funding if those strategies are going to hit the ground and truly have an impact on the benefit of our health and our communities and the resilience of our communities to the impacts of climate change.

The funding is critical to see the strategy hit the ground and to be able to support the local and community-based planning and decision-making that’s needed. That will include a variety — from fire planning and protection to flood strategy. And that all needs to be done at that watershed level.

To your second question, the $5 million, roughly, for the endowment…. The province has provided guidance to the First Nations water caucus who is in the process right now of co-developing the watershed security fund. Their guidance has been to create this endowment so that it can grow and provide that long-term sustainable funding.

[9:45 a.m.]

The $100 million roughly can provide about $5 million back, give or take, obviously. That’s why we want to see that additional $300 million from the province, which would make that a $400 million total investment. Matched by the feds is another $400 million. Then the additional $200 million from business or private and philanthropic gets us to $1 billion.

With the return on that, we can have, roughly, close to $75 million annually. Plus, what we know and what we’ve seen from investments through the province is, on average…. For every dollar that’s invested in watersheds by the province, at minimum, another $1 can be leveraged from other outside sources, which essentially doubles the investment of what’s possible in watersheds across the province.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Coree.

We have a minute and a half and two questions.

Bruce and then Ronna-Rae.

B. Banman: Thank you very much.

I’m going to, perhaps, ask a question. It may be a little bit outside…. For instance, as we go through all these wildfires, what has been…. At least one of the logging companies that I’ve talked to has said: “You know what? There’s a ton of valuable wood that’s standing there. These forests are depleted now. They are not now great watersheds. If you let us in there in a timely manner, within a year and a half, we will not only get the valuable fibre out of there, but we’ll actually replant as well.”

Would that be an initiative that you could see working for your organization?

C. Tull: I think what is important when it comes to the watershed security fund is…. It’s being co-developed by the First Nations water caucus. They’re going to determine what the priorities are and how that money is spent.

What we have seen is…. If we can rebuild natural de­fences — that’s rebuilding strong and healthy forests and wetlands and stream banks so they can be that first line of defence against the climate crisis to ensure our communities are healthy and safe — then that is a positive move.

I don’t know specifically what this company is proposing. So I can’t speak to that. We need to be investing in rebuilding those forests. That creates communities more resilient to fires and floods and droughts.

R. Leonard: Coree, nice to see you again.

I’ve got so many questions. The investment of the $100 million is going to generate approximately $5 million in a year. What kinds of investments are you talking about? My sense….

There are arguments around just putting money out to support the initiatives versus investing it and locking it up. What’s it locked up in? Is it going to actually help facilitate the watershed security initiatives that we need to see across all sectors, not just in restoration, enhancement, land purchase, whatever?

C. Tull: Yeah. If I’m understanding your question correctly, you’re wondering just about…. Is an endowment the model that’s going to move us forward with the investments in watersheds that are needed? I would say yes.

The beauty of an endowment is…. The type of work that is needed, whether that be through restoration, whether that be through watershed governance and planning and the collaborative monitoring work that needs to happen….

It’s more than these one-off projects. We need to see that consecutive and consistent funding year after year. We’ve heard that from communities and from First Nations year after year.

The value and the benefit and the success of an endowment model, which we’ve seen through other funding models like Coast Funds and other projects, is…. If we can get that initial investment in so that we can grow that endowment, then we can just continue to invest in these projects year after year, and we don’t have to continue to come back and come back and come back.

It allows for far more successful projects in the long run. Groups and organizations can do the successful planning from start to finish, from the monitoring and the planning and the decision-making to the restoration work, and then the monitoring and the maintenance that needs to happen following. That, ultimately, is going to make our communities a lot more safer in the long run.

We need to ensure we have the foundation of sustainable funding, which can allow for that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Coree, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

C. Tull: Thank you very much. I really appreciate the time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up is Bridgitte Anderson, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

[9:50 a.m.]

Bridgitte, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours, Bridgitte.

GREATER VANCOUVER BOARD OF TRADE

B. Anderson: Thank you very much, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Bridgitte Anderson, and I’m the president and the CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

I’m presenting today from the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

On behalf of our over 5,000 members and our board of directors, I’d like to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Over the past few years, British Columbians have dem­onstrated remarkable resilience and managed to achieve growth despite challenges brought by the pandemic and climate-related events. However, we are concerned about the future of our economy and community. B.C. is expected to lag behind most provinces in real GDP growth in 2023 and in 2024, as well as the potential decline in growth per capita.

The Canadian survey of business conditions found the top five obstacles businesses in Metro Vancouver anticipate in the next three months are rising inflation; rising costs of inputs in real estate, leasing or property taxes; recruiting and retaining skilled employees; and rising interest rates and debt costs. Over half of the businesses surveyed anticipate an increase in operating expenses in the coming quarter, while more than a third expect a meaningful decline in profitability.

For Budget 2024, our desire is for a dual focus: first, on improving B.C. as a jurisdiction for businesses to invest and grow, which will in turn support our communities; and with record population growth expected, for the provincial government to invest in infrastructure to enhance our global competitiveness and foster prosperity in communities across the province.

In May, we released a groundbreaking policy report titled Counting the Costs. Our analysis found that B.C. businesses will bear $6½ billion in additional government costs. Policies such as the payroll tax implemented in 2019, increased mandatory paid sick leave and minimum-wage hikes have added substantial costs, making it increasingly challenging for businesses, especially for SMEs, to thrive and remain competitive.

For many small businesses, the fabric of our communities, it’s not just one additional expense that cuts into the bottom line. It is everything. It is like death by 1,000 cuts. So to alleviate the burden for businesses and enhance competitiveness, we have three specific recommendations for government.

Recommendation No. 1: reduce the cost of doing business, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, by increasing the EHT threshold for SMEs to at least $1½ million, introducing PST exemptions on business inputs such as computer software and telecommunication services or machinery equipment, and reducing commercial property taxes.

Secondly, as the province transitions from the current carbon tax regime to an output-based pricing system, we encourage the province to implement a made-in-B.C. carbon-pricing system for industry that incentivizes emissions reductions and accelerates private sector investment and innovation in our economy.

Our third recommendation focuses on planning for growth. Last year 150,000 people moved to B.C., and tens of thousands more are expected. As our population continues to grow, so does demand for housing, infrastructure and services. It is vital that the province invest in smart and sustainable regional growth and prioritize the development of growth-oriented infrastructure to better serve our businesses and our communities. This means guaranteeing a smooth flow of people and goods and fortifying supply chains and transit systems while actively responding to the evolving needs of British Columbians.

To achieve this objective, our third recommendation: develop an economically enabling infrastructure plan with a focus on the efficient movement of goods and people, managing a growing population and housing needs, protecting the supply of industrial land and enhancing the transportation system and ensuring long-term and stable funding for more transit service.

A few of the challenges I highlighted are just some of the many obstacles that businesses and communities are grappling with. Economic headwinds, public safety concerns, regulatory burdens and an unfavourable tax regime are making it increasingly challenging to do business in this province, which ultimately impacts workers, consumers and communities.

[9:55 a.m.]

Despite these challenges, we take pride in the resilience and perseverance of the businesses and the people they employ in our province, and we look forward to continuing to work collaboratively on these issues with you in the months ahead.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Bridgitte, thank you very much for your presentation.

Are there comments and/or questions?

B. Banman: Thank you very much for advocating on behalf of small and medium businesses. I’ve always felt that government’s job is to create an atmosphere in which they can thrive and survive. Their goal is to become bigger businesses, and you need that economic base to pay for all the things that we want. So I do appreciate that.

When you talk about industrial lands, I think a lot of people are unaware that in Abbotsford, for instance, I believe that industrial lands have now pushed the $5-million-an-acre barrier. If they haven’t, they soon will. And I take a look…. In many cities, industrial lands are disappearing, and all kinds of other things are being put there instead. What would you suggest we do to try and preserve industrial lands?

B. Anderson: Your timing of the question is perfect. We are putting the final touches on an economic impact study on this very issue. As you say, industrial lands are the tightest in the country, almost certainly the most expensive. We have been conducting analysis, some that has been existing and some that is new analysis and research, and in the next few weeks, we will be releasing our study, which will include some recommendations. We’re looking holistically at industrial lands for the region.

Without trying to steal the thunder from the report that we’re going to release, it is time that the government take a look at changes to zoning, for example. I’d be happy to share that report when it’s finalized. That will be in the next couple of weeks.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Bridgitte, for the presentation. A couple things here — well, one for sure.

You mentioned the new OBPS, the output-based pricing system, that’s coming in, and the design of that. You mentioned a made-in-B.C. price on carbon. As we know, our global competitiveness is critical for those emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries like coal, timber, those kinds of things. As we move to 2030, it’ll be $170 a tonne. So the further we move to 2030, the less and less competitive we’ll become globally, unless we get this right.

What do you propose? Are there any suggestions you have that could protect our industries? The thresholds for carbon credits could be higher, because here in B.C., we’re already pretty efficient with carbon, with our electrification and everything else, so it’s tougher for us to ratchet ourselves up to save carbon. Is there anything that you could suggest that we need to do?

B. Anderson: Thank you for the question. We have been advocating, along with a number of other trade and business associations. We’re looking at the cost of this to em­ployers, an average increase of 1.3 in annual costs for businesses. We understand that the cost to B.C. businesses is not being faced by other Canadian companies.

We’re calling for a B.C.-based solution. There are a number of different options available. If we look at just the scale of what is being put onto B.C. businesses, we think that there’s an opportunity to align better, in a more fair way. I’m happy to share some of those recommendations that we are making, but really, I think, there is a broad review that is required to ensure that there is fairness in the system.

B. Stewart: Bridgitte, I just wanted to ask you about your report. You know, it’s interesting that you talk about the things that are the obvious increases to the cost of business. I guess the one that’s not so obvious is the pressure on increased wages if you lift the minimum wage, and what that does across the board. Yesterday we had a long discussion with the statutory officers here at the Leg., about the cost of inflation.

Have you looked at that in terms of the magnitude of what that would mean across British Columbia? I mean, it’s just like you keep adding to it, and you can’t keep up. I guess the question is: what’s that going to do to business in British Columbia?

[10:00 a.m.]

B. Anderson: Thank you for the question.

We specifically chose to look at just a handful of some of the cost increases that we saw. We didn’t include minimum wage, necessarily. If you take that apart, there has been a 21 percent increase in the minimum wage from 2019 to 2023. We’re now sitting at one of the highest minimum wages in Canada.

I don’t think we can ignore, though, that affordability is a significant concern not just for individuals and families. I mean for businesses as well. That, also, has to be kept in mind. I think that’s why I said….

This cost of doing business, therefore, is cumulative. It is not just one particular increase in the minimum wage or in a statutory holiday or in the EHT. When you take it all together, the burden on businesses — and, particularly, on small and medium businesses — is becoming unmanageable. The minimum wage is just one factor, recognizing, though, that there is an affordability crisis that individuals are dealing with.

If you strip that out and you look at, even, tax rates alone…. B.C. has the highest marginal tax rate on new business investment and North America’s fourth-highest personal tax rate at 53.5 percent.

It is cumulative, with the employer health tax, with mandatory sick days. All levels of government need to understand the burden that these cumulative taxes and regulatory increases are having on businesses. It impacts their ability to pay their workers, to operate their business and for communities to thrive.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Bridgitte.

Next up we have Nicole Charlwood.

Nicole, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Now the floor is yours.

NICOLE CHARLWOOD

N. Charlwood: I thank the committee and organizers for this opportunity to talk about food investment and food policy.

I am a former councillor for the city of Nelson responsi­ble for farmers markets. I also worked with a not-for-profit that ran food markets and free fresh food distribution.

I’m calling in from the Kootenays, on the unceded and traditional territories of the Sinixt, the Ktunaxa to the east, the Secwépemc to the north and the Syilx to the west.

It’s important for us to recognize that the right to food was included in the universal declaration of human rights adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. It is part of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Canada is a signatory.

Despite our right to access food, it’s getting more and more difficult to meet our basic food needs. Currently grocery stores only carry three days’ worth of food.

In a vast province rich with agricultural potential, we do not feed ourselves, not even close. Local food makes up about 34 percent of what we consume in this province. One hundred years ago we produced 70 percent of our food locally. So we’ve lost about 50 percent of our capacity. In 2022, costs for mostly imported food went up over 11 percent and continue to rise.

We can satisfy our needs with community-based food systems, which could ensure human and ecological well-being while simultaneously growing our local economy. The province has done well to establish food hubs to help farmers scale. But root issues of personal farmer risk, low pay and access to healthy land and water are still putting a major dent in our capacity.

I bring three recommendations to improve food resilience in B.C.: increase the protection of water sources, launch a food sovereignty fund and establish a food sovereignty policy to support a robust and local healthy food economy.

The last time I was here speaking to this committee, I was advocating for the newly established watershed security fund. My recommendation today is to grow said fund to ten times its current size. Farmers all across B.C. are concerned about the decrease in water supply they need to grow crops and raise animals. The need to protect our water sources is growing, as should the public funds we choose to invest.

I asked my local CSA farmer what they would like to see to improve and grow our local food capacity. The answer was simple: more farmers. Removing the risks and personal costs associated with farming would attract more people to the profession.

[10:05 a.m.]

My second recommendation, therefore, is to establish a food sovereignty fund. Currently the provincial and federal governments offer AgriStability, an insurance program to help farmers hedge financially against bad crop years and fluctuating prices. Farmers have to buy into it, and it pays out only if income drops more than 30 percent. There are other incentives and income supports.

Why do we make it so difficult for them to receive the help they need? What if we offered farmers a guaranteed, livable income? Guaranteeing a good, stable income would make the work more appealing and not require the stress of big losses before help was offered through arduous red tape. Why should farmers bear all the risks of a changing climate and economic landscape? They provide an essential service, and we should pay them for it.

A fund could be used to help broker access to farmland. Not-for-profits such as the Young Agrarians are trying hard to help bridge the gap between land ownership and farming but with minimal success. Government intervention could greatly increase land access for potential farm managers and could support the development of socially beneficial co-op and First Nation initiatives. This would be a fantastic complement to existing infrastructure supports being offered.

My third recommendation is to note a presentation com­ing up today about the idea of legislating food sovereignty. We are encouraging the development of a food system in which the people who produce, distribute and consume food also control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution. This stands in contrast to the present food regime in which corporations and market institutions control the global food system.

I hope to see that this government is interested in actively trying to ensure we don’t suffer serious food shortages. Let’s invest in farmers, land and water in growing amounts to ensure one of our most basic needs can be met.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Nicole.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Nicole, for the presentation.

I have an interesting question about protecting water sources. As we know, farmers are…. Agriculture is actually one of the larger water consumption activities in British Columbia. Has there been any kind of thought or consideration to creating incentives to help farmers innovate in water usage? We can reduce water wastage and find a way to maximize the yield without tapping too far into the water sources within local areas.

N. Charlwood: Yeah. That’s a really good question.

You’re right. It shouldn’t just be a one-way thing. Keep the water coming without having to be held accountable for its use. Absolutely.

I know farmers are constantly working on trying to im­prove their water usage. I think we need to consider new forms of farming. There are lots of…. Permaculture is one of those frames that is being added to farming these days to ensure that water that, say, lands on the land gets used on the land and isn’t running off.

I think what we’re talking about, though…. It is a two-sided conversation. Yes, farmers should also be asked to conserve and use well, but we are seeing surface water sources depleting. It’s happening on both ends. So I don’t think it should just be a one-direction conversation.

B. Stewart: Nicole, I wanted to ask you…. As food costs…. I mean, when you have a choice, in a store, to purchase local versus imported, do you think that the cost differential is a factor? The only reason being….

As a farmer myself, I know our costs have risen, just in our labour costs, over 25 percent over the last few years, with increased input costs. I’m wondering. Is that a factor in terms of making people choose differently?

N. Charlwood: Oh, absolutely. I think cost is one of the dominant choices. We have a food co-op that supplies local produce, and then we have a couple of grocery stores that provide mostly imported produce. It’s still busier in the cheaper grocery stores. So cost is absolutely a factor.

[10:10 a.m.]

That’s something that, long term, gets solved. Maybe there’s…. If we could help farmers locally keep costs down, I think we’d find, over time, that our food costs would all come down. We’re not paying for those added transportation costs and additional expenses that get added to our food when they have to travel such long distances.

Yeah. it is making a current…. I don’t think we should be waiting for the market to be able to pay for higher prices for us to start investing in our local food, if that makes sense.

G. Chow: Thank you for the presentation. What are the barriers to people taking up farming? I think you mentioned the availability of farmlands.

Also, you mentioned a guaranteed minimum income to farmers. What are the other barriers? For example, is it too hard work for…?

N. Charlwood: I think we know British Columbians to be resilient and hard workers. It is hard work, but I do think we need to remember that the demographics of our population are changing and changing quickly, and there are not as many young folks as there are old folks leaving. There’s a demographic shift that we need to account for as well.

I’m hearing quite a bit of people blaming younger peo­ple for being lazy, and I really don’t want that to perpetuate. I think we need to look at, maybe, the cost of learning to be a farmer, because most people aren’t inheriting into farms, but they’re going to school to study. I did think about adding that as an ask: “Hey, what about free education for people who want to go into farming?”

That, I think, is a barrier as well — a lack of knowledge, a lack of experience, intimidation of all the processes that you need to go through to get supports from the government. There are a whole lot of factors that I think play into that.

G. Chow: What about, say, admitting more immigrants who would take up farming?

N. Charlwood: I mean, we see that a lot already.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Nicole, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

N. Charlwood: I really appreciate your questions. Thank you so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We are going to take a brief recess. We have people that are in the waiting room right now, so five minutes and we’re back.

The committee recessed from 10:12 a.m. to 10:18 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. We are back. Our next presenter is Solita Work.

Solita, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Now the floor is yours.

SOLITA WORK

S. Work: I am recommending that the B.C. government allow communities across B.C. to establish a food sovereignty act.

Food safety policy is sound in theory. No one wants to get sick. But when we look at the history of milk production or meat processing, food contamination became problematic when production was scaled up. Large numbers of animals kept in close quarters and fed unhealthy diets, coupled with the time needed to transport goods from local farms located often hundreds of miles from processing plants, increases potential for contamination.

Adding sanitation protocols maintained by hundreds of shift workers — it’s no wonder safety measures were needed. But judging by the number of food recalls posted on a daily basis, it’s time to revisit these rules.

Maine has done exactly that with the Food Sovereignty Act. It enables individuals to sell almost any home-baked goods, including those which are canned, pickled and refrigerated, without typical licensing, permitting or in­spection requirements. It recognizes food as a right and permits individuals to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume food that is culturally appropriate, produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods of their choosing, for their nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being.

[10:20 a.m.]

There is opposition to these new policies, arguing in fa­vour of food safety regulations that supposedly ensure that consumers do not contract food-borne illnesses. Those in favour are generally large-scale farms and food processors. Yet when home-produced food was legalized in Utah, Wyoming and North Dakota, not a single case of food-borne illness was reported within the first year. In addition to that, in Wyoming, when food freedom legislation was introduced, farmers markets grew by nearly 70 percent in four years. There’s an obvious demand finally being met.

There are many reasons why homemade food is safe.

First, it is sold directly to the consumer, decreasing the likelihood of contamination because it’s not being transported to a distributor or processed far away. It’s fresh.

Second, small, independent farmers and producers have a relationship with their customers and need the trust of their communities to be successful. They know that they risk losing business if any of their food makes a buyer ill.

Finally, these individual producers are still held accountable for the safety of their products. Consumers can take legal action if they get sick.

A food sovereignty act would increase food security in our communities. Allowing direct access would ensure that food remains affordable while reducing waste and transport emissions. Until the mad cow crisis happened, small farmers slaughtered animals and processed meat on their own farms and sold it directly to neighbours. New laws require that all animals be slaughtered, processed and inspected at designated abattoirs.

Abattoirs require a significant investment in building, equipment and staff to operate. These facilities are costly to build. As a result, there are none located within 100 kilometres of our region in the West Kootenays. The animals have to be transported at significant cost, alive, to be slaughtered and processed in other jurisdictions. Some farmers don’t raise them anymore at all. It’s not a profit. There is, in turn, reduced access to meat, increasing the price at grocery store shelves because it has to be imported.

Finally, abattoirs are supposed to make food safe, but we already know that the larger the operation and the farther it travels, the more likely food gets contaminated.

Another example of how such an act would increase food access is allowing baked and canned goods to be made at home again. There were many individuals in our region that baked, canned, froze and dried excess produce from their gardens. This excess was sold at farmers markets, bake sales and supplied to schools for lunches.

With new regulations, food must be processed in commercial kitchens. If you can’t afford to install one, you have to rent one. You are also required to obtain special permits to produce and sell it. Not only does this make food more expensive because of the need for specialized equipment and permits, but it also discourages individuals from producing food at all.

Our region suffers from food insecurity. In recent years, demand for food banks has doubled. Farmers in our area currently supply only 5 percent of demand. The rest is imported. The proposed $200 million aimed at addressing food security will not improve without systemic changes. Reliance on food banks, charitable organizations, corporate farm and retail subsidies will not solve the problem long term. Eliminating cumbersome regulations imposed on cottage industry will.

Consider this. Victory gardens produced 40 percent of fresh produce from 20 million gardens in the U.S. during the Second World War. Victory gardens were popular in Canada too. Those gardens were located on public land and in backyards, making the gardens convenient to access.

Self-sufficiency and local food production has declined to about 1.5 percent of food-growing gardens at home today. Regulations imposed on individuals and small family farms has reduced food security. A food sovereignty act in the West Kootenays would improve food access in our region, allowing individuals and farms to produce food from their homes. This act would encourage redistribution of unaffordable land to those who want it.

Our government should invest in publicly owned infrastructure, perhaps in community halls, to process food, ensuring that food does not leave the region, reducing transportation costs and encouraging year-round local supply. Eliminating regulations and permits will allow neighbours to buy, sell and trade their homemade goods without penalty. It would encourage better growing standards by promoting regenerative permaculture practices and increasing watershed protections.

By eliminating corporate monoculture subsidies, we can reinvest in mixed crops, including farm animals, allowing backyard chickens, for example. This is especially important with concern of current forestry practices that scar the landscape for years and pollute water sources.

A food sovereignty act would encourage local self-sufficiency, local trade, offering better access to affordable food, all while strengthening communities across B.C.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Solita, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

B. Banman: As a child that grew up with homemade bake sales that raised money for the local schools…. You used to go to all these places and buy all these home-baked goods, and neighbours would prepare meals for others. It was a way that some actually put income into their households that was badly needed.

[10:25 a.m.]

What do you suggest we do to ensure that those foods are safe? There has to be some kind of regulation to do that. What do you suggest we do to ensure that there is that safety there for people?

S. Work: One of my thoughts was if we were to support the implementation of food processing, like canning bees and stuff in community halls again, there could be food safety practice that was taught to individuals that wanted to do that.

Another example is that when we did have dairy cows on our farm — this was when we could still sell raw milk — we always tested the animals for tuberculosis, which was pretty standard. Those are the kinds of things that we could put in place. We’d have more money if we weren’t subsidizing big business to make it easier for individuals to make sure their food is safe.

Again, people are not going to contaminate their own neighbours. I think that there needs to be some weight put on that.

B. Banman: I don’t think anybody intends contaminate their neighbours, but problems do happen. They happen in big factories too, as you pointed out. It does happen.

Again, I go back to how….? I like the idea. I like the concept. I think we’ve lost a lot from going to these big things. But what would you suggest to ensure that there is that safety in there? Would there be some kind of inspection process? Would there be certification? Should it be taught? That’s going to be the pushback. How do you make sure it’s safe?

S. Work: Well, I would argue that food isn’t safe coming from the bigger organizations. Just go to the Canada website and check out all the food recalls. What we currently have isn’t working. I think we’re better off relying on and trusting in our neighbours.

I do think that there could be an education component that would definitely help improve that. If you look at the past, most of the food-borne illness that people do get is from large operations, not the individual ones.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments and or questions?

B. Stewart: Solita, I wanted to ask…. You mentioned about processing and doing it in a neighbourhood fashion. I was just looking to see if I could find the term. I’m sure some of my colleagues here might remember. The Ministry of Agriculture set up all sorts of food processing kitchens.

H. Yao: Food hubs.

B. Stewart: Food hubs, right. Is there not one in your area? They are pretty well distributed across the province. They’ve been exactly what you’ve been asking for. Maybe we can connect you.

S. Work: I guess my point is that we need more of them. Every community hall should have one. Yes, there is one. I believe it just opened in Nelson or close to you. But I think it’s quickly going to run out of capacity. I think that if every neighbourhood….

It makes sense that you would want to produce the food where you live. There are tons of people that live in the area that aren’t that close to Nelson, but there are community halls located within walking distance of their homes.

B. Stewart: Thanks. We’ll get on that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Solita.

Next up we have Richard Tarnoff, Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association.

You have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Richard, the floor is yours.

VANCOUVER ISLAND REGION
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ASSOCIATION

R. Tarnoff: Good morning, members and staff of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. My name is Richard Tarnoff. I’m the president of the Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association.

I’m speaking to you from Ladysmith, from the traditional territory of the Hul’q’umi’num’-speaking people.

On behalf of VIRRJA, I would like to thank the Finance Committee for inviting us to submit recommendations for the 2024 provincial budget.

VIRRJA represents 20 community-based restorative jus­tice programs on Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast.

[10:30 a.m.]

In previous submissions, we described our work — how it supports victims, holds offenders accountable and helps make our communities safer. We explained stable funding from government was key to delivering a high standard of service. In the standing committee’s 2023 recommendations to the Legislative Assembly, recommendation 196 stated: “Recognize restorative justice as an essential service by providing adequate and stable funding, and by increasing system-wide awareness.”

You might be interested to know that the parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, in their December 2022 report Improving Support for Victims of Crime, made a similar recommendation. Their recommendation 8 states: “That the Department of Justice promote and expand restorative justice opportunities and that adequate funding be provided to restorative justice programs.” Unfortunately, the committee’s recommendation hasn’t yet resulted in an increase in funding for existing programs or recognition for new programs. Still, we thank you for your acknowledgment and support.

Today I would like to draw your attention to an emerging opportunity for restorative practices. You may be aware that the B.C. Office of the Human Rights Commissioner recently released a major report. It is called From Hate to Hope: Report of the Inquiry into Hate in the COVID-19 Pandemic. It cost $420,000 to produce. The report provides details on how hate-motivated incidents in­creased during COVID-19. While some of these incidents received publicity at the time, this was the first attempt to pull all of the information together.

The report describes how less than 10 percent of hate incidents are reported and why the criminal justice system, in most cases, is not an effective response. The report strongly recommends using restorative justice when possible. Recommendation 7 states: “Support and fund community restorative justice and healing programs to help people radicalized into hate as well as people impacted by hate.”

Besides acknowledging the ineffectiveness of the legal system to deal with hate-related incidents, the report recognizes the trauma and fear they can create in the wider community. Community-based programs that are familiar with local problems, connected to resources and are trained to deal with hate-based conflicts are able to support the dialogue needed to work towards understanding and help rebuild relationships. Of course, if the recommendations of the report of the Human Rights Commissioner were to be followed, our programs would need funding to get the type of training and build the partnerships required for these incidents.

The parliamentary committee made another recommendation that we believe is important. The Victims Bill of Rights already stated that victims have the right to be given information about restorative justice if they request it. Recommendation 4 states that the information to which victims of crime are entitled should be provided automatically, rather than on request. This is significant, because most victims are not aware that restorative justice might be an option and so would be unlikely to request information about it.

In conclusion, we thank you for your support of restorative justice and urge you to recommend sufficient funding to allow programs to continue providing essential services and to develop the capacity to meet the needs identified by the Human Rights Commissioner.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Richard.

S. Chant: Thank you so much for your outline and information.

The restorative justice — what would you suggest as an amount to move towards restorative justice?

R. Tarnoff: It’s hard to specify an amount because the needs of all the programs are very different. We have a large program like Victoria that has an office and paid staff. They’re obviously going to need more. Smaller programs need less.

I would say that if the ministry raised the bottom rate from $4,000 per year to $10,000 per year for everybody, and then met with each program to determine what they needed, that would probably be the best way to go forward.

[10:35 a.m.]

All programs have basic needs: insurance, training, travel. They need…. A floor of $10,000 a year could go a long way to meeting those needs.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Richard, you had made mention about the Human Rights Commissioner and the hate-based conflicts and/or issues. How much of an impact is that on your group and delivering that part of the programming?

R. Tarnoff: At this point, it’s not an impact. We’ve had very few hate-related or hate-based referrals. I think it’s because it’s…. In the past, it’s not been identified as something that could be dealt with through restorative justice. The same way as sexual assault and domestic violence for a long time were thought to be not appropriate for restorative justice. That’s now changing, and that’s a good thing for it to be used when that’s the wish of all the parties.

As a result of it not being approved of by the province for a long time, most programs don’t have training in those areas. To move in and to start to provide a good quality of service, we need more training.

R. Leonard: That last comment — so true. What you have to deliver is…. You have to have good capacity to achieve the successes that are expected out of restorative justice.

Like you said, there is a vast diversity of capacity throughout the province with different restorative justice centres. I was wondering if you could sort of give us a range of what that capacity looks like. What could be done to raise the level of participation of the kind of expertise that’s needed to make it work? You’ve mentioned education marketing, making sure that the word gets out about restorative justice.

You’ve got a convert here. We have a great restorative justice program in the Comox Valley, and I’ve seen how it’s worked even around issues around street disorder.

R. Tarnoff: Yes, Comox is another one of the programs that are very well developed, well sourced and well trained.

You said: what’s the range? I’m not sure. But I had a little bit to do with North Shore Restorative Justice, and I think they get in the neighbourhood of 200 or 300 referrals a year, whereas the small programs like Ucluelet or Gold River may only get six or seven referrals a year. So there’s a vast difference.

Most of the smaller communities and smaller programs do not have paid staff. They’re all volunteers. But even in the larger programs, the facilitators and mentors that work with them are all volunteers. There’s a vast variety of needs.

I can’t remember the second part of your question.

R. Leonard: Just around what kind of funding would help increase capacity and ability to get the word out about restorative justice.

R. Tarnoff: Yeah, I think getting the word out is publicity, education and, also, what I mentioned about informing victims and offenders. There is nothing to stop the RCMP when they’re interviewing somebody who they suspect has committed a crime from telling them there’s a restorative justice program, and if they want to take responsibility for what they did and request it be dealt with restoratively, they can do that. That’s the right of everybody to take responsibility for what they did.

The RCMP generally doesn’t do that. They’re not re­quired to do that. Many people would not be aware in the same way that victims are not aware, normally, that that might be an option.

With victims, it’s a huge problem too, because in many, many cases, hate crimes but also domestic violence victims, for various reasons, do not come forward to report.

[10:40 a.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Richard, thank you for your presentation this morning, and thank you for your organization that represents those 20 groups that are on the Island and the Gulf Islands. Thank you very much for what you do.

R. Tarnoff: You’re welcome. Thank you for inviting us.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up is Bev Vandersteen, Fort Nelson chamber of commerce.

Bev, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or answers.

The floor is yours.

FORT NELSON AND DISTRICT
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

B. Vandersteen: Perfect. Thank you so much.

As noted, my name is Bev Vandersteen. I’m the executive director of the Fort Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce, up here in the Northern Rockies regional municipality. We’re located in the northeast corner of British Columbia, and we’re the only regional municipality in the province. We cover approximately 10 percent of the province’s land mass.

Fort Nelson is the town seat, located in the heart of the traditional territory of the Dene, Cree and Dane-zaa Indigenous peoples of Fort Nelson and Prophet River First Nations.

We’re bringing forward three areas of concern today, the first being the cost of doing business in British Columbia. We need government to work with B.C. business and business organizations to truly understand the impacts their decisions will have on the business community. I’ll concentrate my comments on just the continual increases we’ve seen related to employees.

Since 2018, we’ve seen a 47.6 percent increase in minimum wage. We have added mandatory sick days and a new statutory holiday, all relating directly to an employer’s bottom line. We’ve implemented an employers health tax that currently holds a $500,000 exemption threshold. This doesn’t protect any but the very smallest of businesses.

We really need to see that increase to $1.5 million. Increases to minimum wage have resulted in that $500,000 threshold really only equating to approximately five, maybe ten, employees, so employers are forced to choose whether they can afford to grow.

In the B.C. Chamber collective perspective survey of 2022, 91 percent cited their biggest issue as the cost of doing business.

Equitable access to health care should be an inherent right for all British Columbians, and we know that that’s not the case. We know that not all services can be available everywhere, and living in a remote community, we accept that we may have to travel for medical services.

What it is unacceptable, though, is that we have to fund it all ourselves, and it’s an inequitable system. Medevac patients are expected to fund and find their own way home once released. Expectant mothers have to leave the community four weeks before their due date. Cancer patients travel for treatment and are often away from home for extended periods of time.

We recently heard Minister Dix’s announcement that a select number of cancer patients will be funded to go to the States for radiation treatment. Meanwhile, I have a mother of two young children who has spent over $10,000 out of pocket so far and is now leaving her children behind, travelling nine hours — with her husband as a caregiver, so they’re also losing his wages in the process — for two weeks of radiation treatment. How is her situation different from the others, and does she not deserve the same respect and care?

Loosely quoted, Minister Dix said that they’d get British Columbians the health care they need, whether here or in another province or country. This is not the experience of northern residents. The Standing Finance Committee has made recommendations around equity in health care in every report going back to at least 2020, with little, and I’m being generous, changing. At recent policy meetings, the B.C. Chamber adopted two health care policies, which I’ll attach as backup to my written submission.

The third item is taxation, both carbon and PST. This is something I bring back every year, so I apologize if it sounds familiar. The carbon tax continues to unfairly im­pact residents in rural and remote northern B.C. It needs to be reviewed. We have no alternatives. We have no public transportation. We have extreme cold, rural residents and businesses, some of which have no access to B.C. Hydro and thus have to generate their own power, typically using diesel generators.

Being required to pay the same carbon tax as, for ex­ample, Metro Vancouver is blatantly inequitable. Choosing to use less gas is not one of our options, so we are held captive to paying more than our fair share of tax. Exemptions to the carbon tax should be created.

Now we hear the province intends to eliminate natural gas rebates and increase the PST on fossil fuel equipment, i.e., natural gas equipment, again unfairly targeting remote and rural areas in northern communities.

[10:45 a.m.]

Mandates to move to heat pumps won’t work with today’s technology in extreme cold climates. Just as a point of interest, we hit minus 54 Celsius last December. Our choices will be to operate two heating systems or again dig deeper into our pockets than our southern neighbours to pay the additional taxes we are punished with.

A possible solution to the unfair tax burden would be to apply a northern B.C. living allowance similar to the federal northern living allowance. This would offset some of the disparity in taxes and the cost of living in the North, providing some form of equity for citizens. We recommend that the government initiate a process of tax relief for residents inequitably impacted by the carbon and PST.

Thanks for your time today. I see I just barely made it. I will send in a written submission. I didn’t have time to do that prior to speaking today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Bev.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Bev, for the presentation.

On the access-to-health-care piece, some of your issues there in the far north sound quite a bit similar to those of us in the far southeast corner, from where I’m at.

A couple of questions. One: no transportation. You alluded to that. So B.C. Bus North, I guess, doesn’t go Fort Nelson way. I’m not sure — up there.

B. Vandersteen: B.C. Bus North does come once a week, back and forth, but we don’t have public transportation such as transit, those types of things that somebody could take around town or to get from community to community.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay.

The second question is access to health care in Alberta: is there any access there? Is that still a viable option, to go to Grande Prairie or Edmonton or anything like that? How does that look?

B. Vandersteen: It’s viable, yes. It’s actually probably the preferred place for a lot of residents from here to go, depending on where family is and that type of thing. But again, it’s cost-prohibitive, and for many services, either the Alberta government won’t authorize B.C. residents to go to Alberta or there are other issues in that with the arrangements between the B.C. and Alberta governments.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks. That’s where I was going with that. We’re seeing a bit of a shutdown in the southeast corner as well. We had a really good relationship with Alberta, with Lethbridge, Calgary. Those referrals, physician-to-patient referrals, were great. But once it gets to the administrative level at AHS, it gets shot right down, and all of a sudden there’s no space. So yeah, I share your frustration.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Bev. I just wanted to ask more on the health care side. What would be…? I mean, I’ve been to Fort Nelson a number of times. I’m wondering. What’s the solution for people needing health care?

I mean, you talked about mothers, expectant mothers, and I’m thinking four weeks away and stuff like that. I’m just…. I don’t know. What’s a reasonable kind of solution?

B. Vandersteen: Well, I think a small step would be even if we could just make 100 percent of medical travel and of medical costs tax deductible. The little bit that is tax deductible right now doesn’t truly make a difference.

I think there has to be some funding. TAP doesn’t work — the current funding program, assistance program, that the British Columbia government has. It doesn’t work. So that needs to be reviewed, and we need to make accessible costs…. Right now it’s almost impossible to access funding. Those two things, I think, would go a long way.

The return home for medevac as well. That is a huge barrier. We have seen patients medevacked out of Fort Nelson, and then they’re just released from, we’ll say, the hospital in Prince George. Often they have no clothes with them. They may or may not have the funds accessible to get themselves home. They don’t have any transportation, and they’re left to figure it out on their own. That’s just simply unacceptable if we’re medevacking patients out.

S. Chant: Can you tell me a little bit more about why TAP isn’t working, please?

B. Vandersteen: Well, it’s complicated. It’s difficult to access. It doesn’t allow patients to apply after they’ve travelled. So in a medevac situation, they can’t apply for access to funds after the fact, and it’s very limited on what it will actually fund.

[10:50 a.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right.

Well, Bev, thank you very much for your presentation this morning. It was insightful into what happens in your region of the province of British Columbia.

B. Vandersteen: Thank you very much for the opportunity. I appreciate it. Have a great day.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up is Lori Mathison, Char­tered Professional Accountants of British Columbia.

Lori, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments. The floor is yours.

CHARTERED PROFESSIONAL
ACCOUNTANTS OF B.C.

L. Mathison: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for having me at your budget consultation. Before I proceed, I would like to acknowledge the importance of the land which we each call home.

I’d like to acknowledge the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, in particular the….

M. Starchuk (Chair): Right now we can’t hear your volume. I don’t know whether you muted yourself.

L. Mathison: Okay. You can hear me okay?

M. Starchuk (Chair): Yeah, we’re all good.

L. Mathison: Okay. CPABC is the training, governing and regulatory body for over 39,000 CPA members and 6,000 CPA students and candidates.

Our primary mission is to protect the public by enforcing the highest professional and ethical standards, and to do this, we educate and support CPAs who, of course, provide essential financial services that support our prov­ince’s economic productivity. We absolutely see signs that have us concerned about the long-term economic outlook of B.C., including a lack of skilled workers, lack of affordable housing and rising debt.

I’m going to speak to three different recommendations, and we’ve also sent in written recommendations. The first one is the need to provide more skilled [audio interrupted].

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, so we’re going to go to the next…. We’ll bring her back.

Okay. Our next presenter will be Rebecca Hurwitz from Clayoquot Biosphere Trust.

Oh. We’re going to go back to Lori.

Rebecca, if you could just stand by. Thank you for standing by.

We’ll go to Lori.

If you want to attempt to try to pick up where you left off, we’ll see how this all works.

L. Mathison: I very much apologize. I’m not sure what’s happening here. But in any event, I was going to go through three recommendations, and I have sent in written recommendations.

The first one is the need to provide more skilled workers by boosting immigration and also skills training. We do surveys of our members, and 83 percent of CPAs in B.C. consider attracting and retaining skilled labour a major challenge for business success.

We also know, of course, that over one million job openings are projected over the next decade, and about 80 percent of those will need post-secondary education or training. Therefore, we recommend that the provincial government continue to focus on skills training and immigration.

We recognize the good work that’s gone into the future-ready action plan. But to further boost that, as well as other government initiatives, CPABC would recommend a cross-sectoral strategy be adopted, and that would include federal government, industry and post-secondary institutions.

I think this could involve the creation of an alliance or task force of other partners really to work together to achieve collective goals on these very important and difficult issues that really need that cross-sectoral input to make a difference. Providing that group with resource support would also be critical for success. Consideration should also be made to making work-integrated learning a required component of post-secondary education.

I am going to go on to a second recommendation which relates to housing affordability and development. Of course, unaffordable housing continues to negatively im­pact the ability of people to live and work in our commun­ities. We have seen significant escalation in both house prices as well as rental prices. And 82 percent of CPAs identified housing prices as a major challenge.

[10:55 a.m.]

We know the government has committed substantial capital towards growing housing supply. Although we know the progress will be monitored, and that’s been stated, CPABC would specifically recommend that the government create a housing development and affordability dashboard. This dashboard should track progress on provincial housing objectives by recording key metrics, including housing supply growth, type, regulatory timelines and affordability measures.

The third recommendation I’d like to comment on is the need to establish a fiscal anchor. We know that B.C.’s debt is growing significantly. We also see that operational spending will grow in last year’s budget even as revenues fall. This means that our tax-supported debt-to-GDP ratio has really jumped from 16.4 percent in ’22-23 to 23 percent in ’25-26.

Our final recommendation is that the provincial government should establish a long-term fiscal anchor or financial goal really to ensure B.C.’s sustainability. This could be done such as by having a target debt-to-GDP ratio but, ideally, should be framed in a broader context rather than simply as an individual metric. This framework, with this broader context, could include spending and debt limits, the flexibility to deal with different economic events, independent monitoring and a result that is easy for the public to understand.

To wrap up, I believe that the reforms I’ve gone through today would really boost our province’s productivity and help us track progress on key factors that are currently negatively affecting our economy.

I’d be pleased to take any questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Lori, thank you for your presentation and for being vigilant and getting back on the Zoom, which is there.

I have a question, with regards to your submission, regarding the ability to attract and retain the people that are out there. Can you expand on that issue at hand?

L. Mathison: Yeah. In our profession, and also across the province, there is a growing need for more people.

We’re seeing…. Growth currently is coming from outside of B.C., principally, just because of the number of positions that are there. We need to make sure that we have people who have the appropriate skills to make a difference in our economy here and have the appropriate training so that we are, in fact, protecting the public and have people who are properly skilled.

It is a complex situation, where we need to bring people in. We also need to have people with the right skills here. That’s why I think we need this cross-sectoral strategy. We need more parties at the table pulling together towards this end.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you.

Any other comments?

B. Stewart: Lori, on your last comment, your recommendation 3…. Have you got a range you might advise us as to what debt-to-GDP…? You’re talking about future economic changes and revenues and things like that. Like your dashboard, have you got any recommendations as to where we should try and stay in?

L. Mathison: Instead of giving a number…. I will say that the range should be…. Where B.C. was, historically, for about ten years was in and around 15 to 17 percent. That was leading in Canada. We were something that other provinces looked to as a really strong example of having set a really solid debt-to-GDP ratio.

That range, I think, is something that is more tolerable and will allow for us to spend less on interest payments.

B. Stewart: The real downside is the interest that we’ll have to cover. That’s the increased cost of that.

Okay. Thanks, Lori.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions and/or comments?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yeah. Thanks.

To piggyback off my colleague here on debt-to-GDP. We saw a recent downgrade by our credit agencies. Do you have a figure on what that difference in interest on the down­grade is costing British Columbians?

L. Mathison: It’s a great question. I don’t have a figure, but I’m happy to look into that and put a submission in to that end.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yeah. That would be great. That would be awesome. Thanks.

[11:00 a.m.]

S. Chant: Out of curiosity, I know that B.C. is looking at these changes. However, is it not consistent with across Canada and, in fact, throughout the world that, related to a whole bunch of things…? The debt-to-GDP has changed in a lot of places. We’re not alone in that particular state.

Am I correct in my assumption here? Can you talk about that a little bit, please?

L. Mathison: I didn’t quite hear the question, but I believe you were asking about debt-to-GDP and how that relates to, historically….

S. Chant: No, the debt-to-GDP in other places currently, related to the various issues that have been going on, such as COVID and such as various other things like the floods, climate change, etc. The debt-to-GDP ratios are changing across the world, not just in British Columbia. I’m wondering if you can comment on that a little bit.

L. Mathison: You are right that debt-to-GDP ratios have been going up across Canada and elsewhere. That is absolutely true, but that also means that we need to be focused on getting back to a healthy debt-to-GDP ratio, not just in B.C. but in other jurisdictions as well. I think it makes a lot of sense. That is a goal, I think, that we should be aspiring to.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Lori, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

L. Mathison: Thank you very much, everyone. I’ll follow up with information respecting interest and the downgrade.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you very much.

Next up is Rebecca Hurwitz, Clayoquot Biosphere Trust.

Rebecca, it’s good to see you again. You have five min­utes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

CLAYOQUOT BIOSPHERE TRUST

R. Hurwitz: My name is Rebecca, and I’m presenting on behalf of the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust in my professional capacity as the executive director. Thank you very much for inviting me to present to the standing committee today.

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that I’m joining you from Tla-o-qui-aht, Ahousaht, Hesquiaht, Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ and Toquaht Nation territory. I share my gratitude for their stewardship of these lands and waters for generations upon generations.

The Clayoquot Biosphere Trust, or CBT, is a registered charity dedicated to meeting the most pressing needs of our region, building towards a future we can all be proud of. In collaboration with the five nations in whose lands we serve, CBT’s mission is to coordinate and support re­search, education and training initiatives that promote biodiversity conservation, sustainable development and reconciliation in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO biosphere region.

Today my recommendation is to support the development of the Clayoquot Sound biosphere centre. In pursuit of our mission, the CBT is requesting that the government of British Columbia partner and invest in the development of this centre in Tofino. Tofino is one of the top tourism destinations in the world, and our goal is to achieve our shared vision of living sustainably in a healthy ecosystem, with a diversified economy and strong, vibrant and united cultures.

The Clayoquot Sound biosphere centre is an important regional initiative which will benefit Vancouver Island and the province, bringing together First Nations, non-Indigenous communities and visitors to a place of learning and reconciliation. This unique capital project will advance conservation, skills and learning, community health and social enterprise.

We are the only First Nations and non–First Nations organization in Canada working collaboratively to develop a UNESCO visitor centre and knowledge hub. The new 9,000-square-foot building will create much-needed teach­ing and training space for the region’s industries, supporting Indigenous economic development, food security and scientific research.

To expand on these goals, CBT supports Indigenous economic development in our region. The centre would allow us to grow these initiatives. Scientists and story­tellers share vital information and teachings through our research programs, advancing the objectives of UNESCO and the UN’s SDGs. Indigenous economic development initiatives can be supported through the centre, to build local opportunities such as agritech, marine agriculture and the coastal marine strategy.

The centre will allow us to expand economic development opportunities and support business growth for Indigenous peoples by facilitating access to tourism markets not otherwise possible without coordination and scale. We’ll grow our research program in the centre, to build a scientific body of work that addresses the local, national and international conservation targets.

[11:05 a.m.]

This research includes regional socioeconomic health measures, social and ecological research and climate change research. The new building will provide teaching, interpretive and exhibition space for educational programs for youth, residents and visitors.

As the regional food hub, our food security program aligns with the government’s goal to strengthen provincial food systems, contributing to a strong, sustainable economy. The centre includes a culinary teaching kitchen to train the region’s food service industry, maximize the abundant food resources of the region and allow the sharing of food harvest and preservation techniques, facilitating food security — and especially drawing attention to that need right now, with the road closure.

Our region truly needs culturally safe public space to convene and deliver this broad range of programs and partnerships and to leverage opportunities to meet our vision. As a UNESCO-designated site, the Clayoquot Sound biosphere centre will be a nexus of education, science, conservation and cultural initiatives on the west coast. The centre aligns with the government’s goals to drive social innovation, invest in the Indigenous economy, support climate action and community recovery initiatives. The biosphere centre provides a shovel-ready project to help achieve these goals.

The CBT owns the property in which the centre will be built and has completed the rezoning process. The building will be constructed following social procurement policies and to maximize local benefit. Once constructed and in operation, the centre will be a self-sustaining social enterprise and will not require any operational funding from government.

We encourage the standing committee to support investing in this exciting project for our province, and we welcome you all to our region to tour the building site.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Rebecca.

B. Stewart: I just want to clarify a couple of things on the cost side. How much is the centre, the CBT…? What is the cost? You mentioned self-sustaining operating. I would like you to better explain how you see this being freestanding, which I think is admirable. Anyway, could you just explain that?

R. Hurwitz: Yeah, sure thing. So the project is a $15 million building, and we currently are seeking $7.2 million from the federal government, from the green and inclusive community buildings program. We’re seeking a $5 million investment from the province. Then we also have a philanthropic campaign, which is about the 25 percent goal right now. So that’s $4 million, and we’re actually about $1½ million.

In terms of the operating costs, we have a business case that is really…. The foundation is running a social enterprise. So we’ll be renting the educational spaces as well as the culinary kitchen to local programs and organizations. Then we also have an office hub that includes space for CBT staff, as well as other local organizations and researchers who will pay either monthly or daily amounts to be working in that office hub.

The business case is a social enterprise, so folks offsetting the operating costs. Currently, CBT is renting a facility, an office in Tofino. It does not meet our needs or allow us to do much of the programming I’ve discussed, but we are paying monthly rent. So we know that that amount would be sustained as well as a contribution to the operating costs.

S. Chant: Does a UNESCO designation come with any funding?

R. Hurwitz: No. Unfortunately, it does not. UNESCO receives funding from member countries, but it’s very rare for funding to flow from UNESCO back to organizations such as ourselves.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Are there any other comments and/or questions?

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. How long has the biosphere trust been in operation? How mature are you?

R. Hurwitz: The CBT was founded in 2000, so really coming out of the history of the communities wanting to see a more sustainable future in Clayoquot Sound. Out of the ’80s and ’90s, the communities identified the UNESCO biosphere program as being aligned with our values and sought the designation.

It’s really a grassroots designation, where the five na­tions and the two municipalities in the regional district work together to apply to be designated, and we seek that redesignation every ten years, so it really ensures that we maintain the rigour of the program. We had our most recent what’s called the periodic review two years ago. We are redesignated for the next period.

[11:10 a.m.]

The biosphere centre vision itself was formed in 2008, and we sort of percolated on that until 2014 when we met and worked with Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation to discuss the opportunity to continue to work in their territory. They invited us to home the biosphere centre in Tofino and have continued to work with us on the project development committee.

We’re working in a good way with Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation. We own the property. We’ve held a couple of ceremonies with their leaders on the land to move forward in a good way, and we’re just excited to work in partnership to achieve this vision.

We really see the lack of public space in our region as being one of our major barriers to achieving our vision. Through the building of the centre, we know that we can just leverage so much of what’s already happening and do much more to transform our region and achieve that vision.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, Rebecca, thank you very much for your presentation this morning. The 9,000-​square-foot building that you’ve described sounds like a beehive of activity that should come to fruition anytime soon. Thank you very much for your presentation.

Our next presenter is Gavin Dirom from Geoscience B.C.

Gavin, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by the five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours, Gavin.

GEOSCIENCE B.C.

G. Dirom: Good morning committee members. My name is Gavin C. Dirom, and I’m the president and CEO of Geoscience B.C.

I’m calling in today from the Vancouver office on the traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil Waututh Nations.

I would like to thank the many nations throughout B.C. that support our research being conducted on their traditional territories.

Geoscience B.C.’s independent, public geoscience is the first link in the supply chain for Canada’s net-zero-emissions economy. Our research on critical minerals and metals, cleaner energy and geological carbon capture and storage informs evidence-based decisions by industry, governments, Indigenous groups and communities.

It attracts investment in B.C.’s low-carbon economy. Geo­science is foundational to provincial action plans like future-ready by supporting industries that create good-paying jobs. It helps to achieve provincial climate policy and CleanBC emission reduction targets that lay the groundwork for a greener, more sustainable future that benefits everyone.

In the last few years, we have made changes to Geo­science B.C. that put us in a strong position to provide the independent geological research that is needed for our net-zero future. For example, we launched Geoscience B.C. membership in early 2022 to more effectively integrate the research needs of industry, communities, Indigenous groups and governments.

We’ve introduced an Indigenous relations and reconciliation advisory council to bring strong Indigenous voices to guide our organization and research. We’re in the process of diversifying our funding model to include contributions from provincial government, federal government, industry, economic development trusts and other partners.

We are grateful to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for its consistent re­commendations for continuing Geoscience B.C. research funding and to the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation for the $495,000 in funding to help us jump-start new critical research in advance towards a long-term funding model that works for everyone.

Today I have three recommendations for the committee.

My first recommendation is that the province of British Columbia support Geoscience B.C. research projects to implement the upcoming B.C. critical minerals strategy. As outlined by the Association for Mineral Exploration, there is an opportunity to enhance B.C.’s competitiveness by bringing our critical minerals and metals geoscience investment in line with other competitive jurisdictions.

Geoscience B.C. has the infrastructure and expertise to ensure that geoscience can support Indigenous reconciliation, increased ESG standards, working with local communities and understanding B.C.’s role in critical minerals and metals supply chain.

Note that every $1 we invest in minerals research results in at least $7 of mineral exploration investment. We are building project concepts that can make a difference, such as working with industry to assess opportunities for critical minerals, and metals in tailings, and waste rock at historical and operating minesites.

[11:15 a.m.]

My second recommendation is that the province of B.C. support Geoscience B.C. energy and carbon storage research projects that could leverage funding from other sources. Carbon storage will be key to producing zero-emission hydrogen in B.C. This supports recommendations from Hydrogen B.C. and provincial and federal hydrogen strategies. Our geothermal research has helped to attract investment at Meager Creek near Pemberton that could support green hydrogen production.

Our Northeast B.C. Geological Carbon Capture and Storage Atlas research is the first step in guiding plans and in­vestment decisions in B.C.’s emerging carbon management and hydrogen sectors.

Again, we are building project concepts that can make a difference. For example, we have proposals to develop geological carbon capture and storage atlases for central B.C. and Lower Mainland regions. The goal of these projects is to understand the capacity of the rock structures in these areas to store carbon. Provincial funding for these projects could leverage additional support from the federal government and from industry.

My third and final recommendation is that the province of B.C. work with Geoscience B.C. and the federal government to secure federal support for geoscience research in B.C. that will benefit the Canadian economy in a net-zero emissions future. We’ve built strong relationships with federal partners who have funding available for critical minerals and metals, cleaner energy and carbon storage — geoscience research that meets both federal and provincial objectives.

For example, B.C.’s critical metals could feed into the supply chain or Ontario’s emerging electric vehicle manufacturing sector. Geoscience B.C. would welcome the opportunity to work even more closely with the province to understand joint opportunities and coordinate funding that could be used to meet shared objectives.

Thank you very much for your time and for your consideration of these recommendations for Budget 2024. I look forward to any questions that you may have.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Gavin.

R. Leonard: I really appreciate hearing from you today. This can be an exciting future if we get this right.

I’d love to ask you lots about carbon capture and storage, but that deals more with net zero. I want to talk about one of the things we keep hearing about: heat pumps not working in the colder regions of the province. My first introduction to geothermal type of energy was at the Benny Farm in Montreal, a very cold climate and an affordable housing project, where they tapped into the temperatures in the land subsurface.

I’m wondering if that is something you have embraced. Have you been looking at it at all, and is that an option for northern British Columbia?

G. Dirom: Most definitely, it is. In fact, we’ve published research results, for instance, in northeast B.C. in the Fort Nelson–Clarke Lake region, which has identified some very hot geothermal water. This has now been moved into a First Nation–owned project known as the Tu Deh-Kah Geothermal project.

This is very exciting. It’s based on good science. Investment has been coming in through both private and government sources. So that’s one example of taking the science to a near-project-level opportunity.

R. Leonard: Again, that’s about capturing the heat from water. Is there an opportunity elsewhere across British Columbia to capture heat below surface?

G. Dirom: Most definitely. We’re blessed with hot water and volcanoes — dormant and not very active, of course — throughout the province, along the coast through the Kootenay region and well into the northwest and northeast regions.

We’re blessed with geothermal potential throughout the province. In fact, we have an atlas, essentially, that shows the very local hot spots so that one can look at them and assess whether there’s a further economic opportunity in their backyard. It covers the whole province: southwest, northeast — everywhere. We’re blessed with that potential.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Gavin, for the presentation. I think it’s no secret that I support Geo­science B.C. and all the work that you do in tandem with the B.C. geological survey in order to secure critical minerals and metals. Not only that, but the projects that you’re working on in carbon capture and storage.

Can you explain how Geoscience B.C. can work with the provincial government on their critical minerals strat­egy that is about to be developed right now? How can you enhance that strategy?

G. Dirom: Thank you for the question. It’s really about leveraging and being effective and smart with our limited resources, both at the province and the industry levels, so that we can pool our resources and get more done faster and better.

[11:20 a.m.]

There’s strong capacity in the province to have all the data in a repository of information collected and available, which is really important. What we’re able to do is on-the-ground research and really expedite the objectives and goals of the province.

That example I gave you with the mine tailings and waste rock is one where we can move forward with academia and with industry support, Indigenous support, and really get these kinds of projects done sooner so that we can achieve these results faster. Really, the idea is that we’re augmenting the role of the provincial survey and the federal survey at all turns.

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation.

It’s also along the critical mineral question that was asked. We produce a lot of copper and export a lot of it as well, to Taiwan, for example, because they have a fantastic electronic industry. So what are the top three critical minerals that we have for the new economy in B.C.?

G. Dirom: It’s a good question. Certainly copper is number one. Zinc is also produced here in the province. We know, of course, that aluminum is produced here. It’s not geologically found here in the province, but aluminum is produced at, of course, the smelter in the Kitimat area. These are some key metals that are listed on the national 31 critical minerals list.

B.C. in fact…. When you look at it carefully, there are at least ten or 12 very promising minerals and metals that we have here. You can even extend that up to close to 20, when you look at rare earths and the platinum group metals.

A very exciting opportunity. We need these metals and minerals for the future for any kind of electrification, but certainly copper is, by far and away, the number one metal that’s explored for, developed and produced in B.C.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Gavin.

G. Dirom: Thank you very much. Have a good day, folks.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Karen Ranalletta, CUPE British Columbia.

Karen, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours, Karen.

CUPE B.C.

K. Ranalletta: Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody.

I want to begin by acknowledging that I’m joining you today from the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, at my home in Vancouver.

Again, my name is Karen Ranalletta. I am the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, British Columbia. We represent 104,000 members who deliver public services in every corner of our province. Our members work in education, local government, health care, child care, community social services, transit, libraries and emergency services.

CUPE members from organizations across B.C. have presented their ideas and recommendations to this committee over the past number of weeks, speaking passionately about the need to invest in public services. Today, however, I want to talk to you about the revenue side of the ledger and how we ensure that everyone is paying their fair share in building a better British Columbia.

The growing gap between the wealthy and the remain­der of society, which was made bigger during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, has created a widespread affordability crisis that continues despite substantial government investments A key missing piece of this puzzle is the generation of new funds by expanding and strengthening our systems of progressive taxation. Progressive taxation ensures that there are resources to enact the types of social spending essential to a fair and just society, and it also ensures that everyone contributes fairly, according to their means.

Progressive taxation, with a fair share of resources drawn from wealthy individuals and corporations, helps British Columbians participate equally in the economy and provides the necessary resources to invest in programs and services. Very specifically, in our province, strong progressive taxation means more funding to continue critical investments in housing, child care, health care, education, public transportation, infrastructure and the many other public services citizens rely on by improving the fairness of our model of taxation.

An example of a simple change that would immediately make B.C.’s tax system fairer is the creation of new tax brackets for high-income earners.

[11:25 a.m.]

B.C.’s income tax brackets for 2023 will feature a maximum rate of 20.5 percent applied to all incomes over $240,076, meaning that all income earned over this amount is taxed at a flat rate. Just a year ago, this threshold was $227,091, which means that B.C. has effectively moved $13,000 of each top income earner’s wages to a lower tax bracket in the last year alone, an effective tax cut of 4 percent for the highest incomes that our system recognizes.

Now, where there does need to be a recognition of inflation within the setting of tax thresholds, the income gap grows beyond inflationary patterns and, unchecked, has resulted in a system where the tax burden is unfairly centred on middle-income earners. Budget 2024 should extend progressive taxation to higher income levels by creating additional tax brackets for incomes above $240,076 at rates higher than 20.5 percent.

Another important element of progressive taxation is ensuring that tax expenses and exemptions are fair and equitable, each serving a bona fide public policy or economic objective. As far back as 2018, B.C.’s Auditor General raised concern over this very issue, recommending more transparency on the reporting of tax expenditures, which total approximately $7 billion per year.

When our tax system’s rules, definitions, allowances and exemptions are not properly designed and applied, the desired policy outcomes are not achieved. The result is undesired and unregulated outcomes that unfairly enrich some and deny resources from others. Ultimately, misalignment of tax system rules denies resources to all of the important functions of government and, in times of crisis, it adds to the provincial debt.

A process is needed to analyze the current structure of tax deductions to ensure they function as intended and meet the policy objectives of the province in the coming decade. This analysis need not only focus on closing loopholes but also could seek new and creative ways to use the tax system to meet new and emerging policy goals.

Budget 2024 should begin the process of reviewing and amending the structure of tax exemptions and credits — including their definitions, allowances, exceptions and rules — to ensure that progressive tax policies’ outcomes align with future fiscal goals.

The work of this government has made a huge difference in the lives of working people across British Columbia, but these gains are challenged by market forces that put stability and prosperity further out of reach every day. Our members are calling for key investments in public services, but we are also equally asking government to take a hard look at its revenue model to ensure the values of progressive taxation are upheld, so that we have the funds to move B.C. forward, and to ensure that everyone, including the wealthy and well-connected, is paying their fair share.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation this morning, Karen.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Karen, for the presentation.

In regards to a high-income tax bracket for high-income earners, just a quick story. I had a conversation with a cancer specialist probably five or six years ago — one of two in the country, I think. Very specialized, definitely in the top income earners. He was a little disappointed in the tax structure in British Columbia, so much to the fact that he has now moved to Washington State, which does not have an income tax bracket for what you’re suggesting.

How do we eliminate that threat of people leaving the province that we rely on so greatly, especially for things like specialists, like surgeons or things like that? How do we protect ourselves from that?

K. Ranalletta: That’s a great question. Investment in health care has certainly been something that’s been at the top of all of our minds, especially during a pandemic. Having those folks who are specialists in the province is really important.

I think the Canadians for Tax Fairness, which is a non-profit, did report between 2010 and 2019 that the top 1 percent of Canadians increased their share of their wealth, right? Those folks need to…. Higher rates for higher earners. People need to pay their fair share and according to their means.

I mean, that’s a very specific example. There has to be a way. But vilifying that taxes are bad, as well, is also something we could do better on, because taxes essentially pay for public services, and public services are something that we all need.

[11:30 a.m.]

A. Walker: Thanks, Karen. I appreciate, always, if somebody can come up with suggestions on increasing revenue so that the services that we all rely on can continue to be there for us.

You had brought up the concern about some of the exemptions and credits and doing a full review of those. I think that makes sense. I’m wondering if there are any examples, which you can think of offhand, where things are, maybe, out of balance.

K. Ranalletta: Things like the homeowner grant. Don’t, everybody, freak out. I’m not talking about the elimination of the homeowner grant. It’s something that we’re…. Again, it’s not means-tested. If you were able to adjust it by what somebody earns or…. People in the middle don’t have as much money as people at the top, so having something like the homeowner grant…. Having a means-tested approach could be something that could work.

I’m just trying to think. Other examples that came out of the Auditor General report — we’re happy to follow up with this as well, or you can look at it too — that jumped out were the venture capital tax credit, the B.C. mining flow-through tax credit and the international business activity tax refund. Those are just some of the things that jumped out at us. Those are the kinds of things we would love to see reviewed as you’re looking to generate more revenue for public services.

Is that specific enough?

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Karen.

You mentioned the tax bracket…. You went through a calculation. You mentioned middle income, and I won­dered. What’s the range that you see as being middle income? What are the boundaries that you see? It already is at a substantially less rate, almost half the tax rate of that top tier you were talking about. What do you see as being middle income?

K. Ranalletta: The middle income bracket is something…. We’re more focused on increasing the tax rate for those higher income earners, for those people that make more than $240,000 a year. That’s where we see the opportunity to generate more revenue.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, Karen. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning. We will move on to the next presenter. Thank you very much.

Our next presenter is Doug Slater from Fortis British Columbia.

You have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Doug, the floor is yours.

FORTISBC

D. Slater: Good afternoon. Thank you, everybody.

My name is Doug Slater. I’m the vice-president of Indigenous relations and regulatory affairs at FortisBC. Thank you for this opportunity to address the standing committee today.

FortisBC supports the government’s goals to mitigate the impacts of climate change, create good jobs and build a thriving, cleaner economy. As the largest distributor of energy in the province, providing both electricity and natural gas, we’re committed to partnering with the government to achieve these goals and are focused on leading a successful transition to a clean, affordable and reliable energy future for all British Columbians.

We’re making great progress by making record investments in energy efficiency, spending more than $150 million each year to directly support customers in reducing emissions and significantly expanding and investing in low-carbon renewable gases. We now have contracts in place for approximately 10 percent of our supply and 13 renewable natural gas projects in B.C. approved by a regulator. We are continuing to advance projects across B.C. in partnership with local governments and Indigenous communities. We’re also advancing work to develop numerous hydrogen projects in B.C.

When developing the 2024 budget, FortisBC advocates for the government to consider the following two recommendations.

First, amend legislation to support the expansion of re­newable gas and keep energy affordable for British Columbians. Since the Carbon Tax Act was originally enacted 15 years ago, the policy landscape around climate and energy has significantly shifted. As mentioned previously, we’re well on our way to achieving CleanBC emission reduction targets.

[11:35 a.m.]

These investments will, inevitably, increase rates for our customers. We need to ensure we balance climate ambition against maintaining affordability for our customers.

Proposed policies such as the cap on natural gas utility emissions will result in higher carbon compliance costs and increases to customer rates. The greenhouse gas cap on natural gas utilities will encourage investment in low-carbon technologies and renewable gases, which will have a higher cost than natural gas, placing further upward rate pressure on our customers.

Similarly, the carbon tax will increase the cost of energy to customers who consume natural gas. B.C.’s carbon tax is currently at $3.24 per GJ. When it increases to $170 per tonne in 2030, the carbon tax rate will have increased threefold to approximately $8.40 per gigajoule.

The province should align the carbon tax and other proposed policies to reduce the pancaking impacts on customer rates. This could be done by recognizing the carbon compliance costs of government policies as an implicit carbon price and moderating the carbon tax on natural gas, including renewable gases. This will eliminate the duplicative effect both policies have on customer rates, maintaining affordability while still moving towards significant emissions reductions.

Further amendments relating to gaseous energy such as hydrogen and how the Carbon Tax Act treats renewable natural gas are also urgently needed so the carbon tax is not charged on clean fuels, as it would be today, which places an additional burden on the development and adoption of these fuels. For the sake of brevity, I will not speak to more of those details there.

Recommendation No. 2 is to establish a B.C. hydrogen fund to promote the development of hydrogen energy projects in B.C. The 2022 federal budget brought in several measures aimed at strengthening investment in the clean technology sector, including the development of a clean hydrogen investment tax credit to remain competitive with the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act.

Developing a sizeable domestic supply of hydrogen is essential to achieving a net-zero energy system in the province. B.C. is endowed with the right mix of resources, infrastructure, research institutions and clean tech firms that could see the hydrogen sector generate significant growth and value for the province. However, this sector must be cultivated during its pre-commercialization phase to overcome initial key barriers, costs and risks.

We believe that the province should establish a fund dedicated to leveraging federal resources, while also supporting the commercialization of projects. This would greatly help support the development of hydrogen production in B.C.

We believe our recommendations will support the province’s CleanBC objectives, strengthen B.C.’s position as a leader in Canada’s hydrogen sector and promote affordability for all the British Columbians we serve.

I would like to thank the committee for your attention and would welcome any questions that you may have.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Doug, thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Doug, for the presentation.

In regards to the B.C. hydrogen fund, investing in clean hydrogen…. Our advantage here in British Columbia right now is, obviously, with our natural gas and converting that to blue hydrogen.

Where do you see our advantage in British Columbia in promoting that? Maybe you can speak a little bit on the infrastructure that is in place already that we can utilize to transport, the delivery of, hydrogen in B.C.

D. Slater: Sure. With respect to hydrogen, of course, there are many different kinds. With blue hydrogen, what we’re referring to there is hydrogen which uses natural gas as a feedstock to create low-carbon hydrogen and, often, to make solid carbon, other products like graphite or graphene, which can be used in a number of other pro­ducts. Blue hydrogen will play a key role, as will other forms of hydrogen, green, and so on, in our development.

When we look at the potential for hydrogen in British Columbia, one of the things that’s often overlooked is…. We currently have 1.1 million gas customers that expect safe, affordable, reliable and sustainable energy. That means that a market exists for hydrogen. Where we can meet those criteria…. We have a market for hydrogen here in B.C. Our problem becomes finding an affordable and reliable supply.

[11:40 a.m.]

We do have a number of projects under development that leverage a number of different pathways we’re looking at to blend hydrogen into our system. Physically mixing it with natural gas. Displacing it from industrial processes through the co-location of production and the use of hydrogen. That’s actually one of the fastest ways to get hydrogen off the ground here in B.C. Then, also, creating dedicated hydrogen infrastructure.

These are the ways that we’re looking at it. I think that because of our geography, our existing gas delivery system, we have a significant advantage to create a hydrogen ecosystem here, but we need some supports in order to do that and de-risk the development of hydrogen as we move forward.

A. Walker: Thank you, Doug, and I definitely appreciate the concerns raised about the impacts of the carbon tax on consumers.

I’m wondering. What is FortisBC’s plan to eliminate emissions by 2050?

D. Slater: Sure. We have a long-term climate strategy called our clean growth pathway. That pathway is based on a number of different pillars. Perhaps the two most important pillars are renewable gases, so using a combination of renewable natural gas and hydrogen predominantly to really change the fuel that’s moving through the pipeline system to low-carbon sources.

At the same time, it’s incredibly important for us to continue to invest in energy efficiency and conservation, because it not only helps customers with the costs of energy, reduces waste, but it also reduces the scale of the challenge.

Over the longer term, we’ve studied net zero. When we look forward, we see that British Columbia will need a gas system in order to reach net zero. That’s for a couple of reasons. One is the need to store energy, which the gas system does really well. The other is that there are a number of hard-to-decarbonize sectors that are going to need to be decarbonized through low-carbon gases.

It’s our plan to transition our system over to those gases primarily and reduce the scope of the challenge to investing in energy efficiency and conservation over time to get to net zero.

B. Stewart: Thanks for the presentation. Just on that first part that you went through when you talked about the layering on and pancaking of the tax. I’m wondering if your presentation lays it out so that we could better understand just the impact, because I don’t see it in the slides that we have available to us. If you could do that, that would be appreciated.

D. Slater: Sure. What I mean by pancaking is say, for example, in British Columbia, we have a carbon tax, and across Canada, indeed, we have a carbon tax. Jurisdictions typically choose either to have a carbon tax or to implement other structures like the greenhouse gas reduction standard that’s been proposed to progressively reduce emissions in the gas sector.

If we go south of the border to Washington and Oregon, for example, they have elected to go with a cap-and-reduce system instead of a carbon tax, but in British Columbia, we kind of have both. Not only are customers going to be paying the costs of carbon tax, but they will also be paying for the cost of compliance with the cap on natural gas.

What we’re saying is really, effectively, that we need one of those systems but not both to do that and that there may be a more streamlined way through either reinvesting carbon tax back in reducing emissions in the gas system or simply using one of those approaches but not both.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Doug.

D. Slater: Thank you for the opportunity. Much appreciated.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Nicole Geyer from Take a Hike Foundation.

Okay, Nicole, you have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Nicole, the floor is yours.

TAKE A HIKE FOUNDATION

N. Geyer: Excellent. Good morning, committee members. My name is Nicole Geyer. I am a volunteer board chair of Take a Hike youth mental health foundation as well as a donor.

I’m honoured to be speaking to you from Burnaby on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, specifically the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.

[11:45 a.m.]

Our recommendation to you today is to increase funding to school-based early intervention and prevention mental health support programs like Take a Hike and create ways for organizations like ours to access provincial funding.

I know you are all well aware of the youth mental health crisis in our province, which, despite government and community’s best efforts, is only increasing.

Take a Hike partners with public school districts to offer a mental health program that is a step up from the ten sessions a youth might receive from a government or community mental health service and a step down from in-patient residential treatment. We offer intensive mental health support on a day treatment model, where youth access mental health supports without leaving their families and their communities.

We partner with public school districts. Youth tell us that they want to access mental health supports at school, and school provides the ideal setting to deliver these intensive mental health services.

School districts will identify 15 to 20 youth in grades 10 to 12 who spend all day every day together in one class­room with a teacher and a youth worker. Take a Hike embeds a full-time registered clinical counsellor and covers the cost of the youth learning on and from the land. They build relationships outside of the classroom, become reconnected with their school and their community and cover academic subjects.

Overnight camping trips provide an opportunity for youth to reflect on their lives. Casual conversations progress to therapeutic sessions. Barriers and stigma are removed.

Over the past 23 years…. The results of the program are phenomenal. Most youth double their attendance. Some go from not attending school at all to attending every day. Youth increase the connection to school. It is their best indicator of their youth mental health.

Over the past five years, 92 percent of our grade 12 youth walked across the stage in a graduation ceremony. The vast majority receive a Dogwood certificate. When we look at the Ministry of Education and Child Care’s more stringent five-year completion rate, it’s closer to 60 to 70 percent, depending on the location.

During the pandemic, we saw 75 percent of our youth increase their mental health, while the mental health of most British Columbians was declining. Eighty percent of our alumni feel more prepared for life beyond high school, whether that be post-secondary education or meaningful work. In a recent study, every dollar invested in the Take a Hike society sees between $5.40 and $13.60 of financial benefit.

Take a Hike is incredibly thankful for the $1 million we have received from B.C. Gaming and B.C. civil forfeiture grants, the over $1.1 million from the federal government and the $13 million from philanthropists. That’s just over the last five years. When we approach the provincial government for increased funding, we are bounced between ministries because our program covers so many provincial priorities.

Five years ago we supported 80 youth in partnership with three school districts. Next year we will be closer to 260 youth in partnership with 13 school districts. Including family members, Take a Hike touches the lives of more than 1,000 British Columbians a year. The need is very great. We have 11 more school districts looking to partner with us. But in the next three years, we can only serve three of those districts. That leaves eight school districts, 160 youth and 640 family members without access to this life-changing program.

In conclusion, our recommendation to the 2024 budget consultation is to increase funding for scalable, evidence-based, proven school-based early intervention and prevention mental health supports and to create ways for organizations that straddle provincial priority areas like ours to access B.C. government funding.

Specifically, it would be amazing to provide $2 million in annual funding to the Take a Hike youth mental health foundation so we can eliminate our waiting list within a year.

Thank you very much for your time today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Nicole.

S. Chant: Hi, Nicole. Thank you very much for the work that you do and for the work that Take a Hike does. I know it makes a really significant difference.

[11:50 a.m.]

When you’re taking kids overnight camping and stuff, where are you taking them? How are you getting to places that work for the needs of the kids and the therapists, and so on, that are there? How are you finding those places?

N. Geyer: Well, it’s a very good question. We’ve been at this for 23 years, and I will say, as we scaled and expanded to more communities, that that model changed a bit. It depends on where the program lies. In the Vancouver area, for instance, the kids…. I mean, the outdoors in B.C. is plentiful, so you don’t have to go too far to be able to experience that.

But they do have…. We have buses with trained drivers, and we work with a youth worker, an adventure-based learning specialist who goes with the students, the teachers, and we also have volunteers that go with them, as well, on these out-trips. Some can be one day, and then we have multi-day trips as well.

We have a risk mitigation process to make sure that the kids are safe and the staff are safe. It’s a progressional thing. So when you’re a new student to the program, you’re not going to go on a multi-day trip, and usually the multi-day trips are later on in the year, not right at the beginning of the school year.

Does that answer your question?

S. Chant: It does indeed. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We have two more questions.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for the work that you do. I see it in a different program in my community, where getting youth out into the natural environment makes a big difference.

The question is: how are students…? How do you get your students? What’s the referral process?

N. Geyer: Working with each of the school districts, it depends. References or applications can come from the community. So if the community member knows of the program, they can suggest it to a family or a student to reach out to the Take a Hike program in their community. Or the school administrators or counsellors may know of children and students that would be appropriate for the program.

We really leave it up to the school districts to select those students from their particular district to join the program, but we work really, really closely with the school districts to make sure that the kids are the right fit. They have to be committed to join the program and understand what the program entails. A lot of kids come into the program not having a lot of experience in the outdoors and become very close to the outdoors, but they have to realize that that’s the case. We really leave it up to the districts to select those youth.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Nicole.

You mentioned you get funding from a number of different ministries, and I don’t know which ones they are. It mentions the civil forfeiture and the gaming grants, but I guess if…. Is there a place where you think that you fit?

Secondly, how…? I look at your list of where you’re at, and you mentioned 13 more districts, etc., I hope you’re coming to one near me soon.

N. Geyer: Well, hopefully. What district are you in?

B. Stewart: School district 23.

N. Geyer: Which is?

B. Stewart: Kelowna.

N. Geyer: Oh, very good news. Yes. The next three school districts that we’re looking at…. Two of them are in the Okanagan, in Kelowna and Vernon.

B. Stewart: Good.

N. Geyer: Then we’re hoping that happens in September.

Sorry. Your question?

B. Stewart: Well, I was wondering about…. You mentioned the funding was coming from multiple areas, and I think that we’ve seen this before. So I’m just wondering: where do you think you best fit?

I mean, I don’t know where…. I know the Solicitor General is in there with civil forfeiture, but who else is helping, and how do we better target what you’re doing?

N. Geyer: That’s a really good question. We were given $150,000. And I’m not…. I think it came out of the mental health area a number of years back. That’s going back over five years. Since then, the only moneys we’ve received from the provincial government are through B.C. gaming and B.C. civil forfeiture.

We haven’t found our home, and I’m not really sure how to answer that. We’re looking to you as a government to help us. We certainly fit within the mental health space, and we also fit within the school space and the education space, and that’s kind of where we’ve focused over the last five years, but we haven’t found our home.

[11:55 a.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Nicole.

N. Geyer: Thank you very much for your time. Much appreciated, and we do appreciate the support we’ve had so far and look forward to continued partnership with the government.

Have a good day, everyone.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Dr. Gail Murphy, the University of British Columbia.

Dr Murphy, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

G. Murphy: Well, good morning, and thank you for inviting me today.

As was mentioned, I’m Gail Murphy. I’m vice-president, research and innovation, at UBC, and I’m here on behalf of our interim president, Dr. Deborah Buszard. I truly appreciate the opportunity this morning to speak with the committee about issues that are so important to the future of our province.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that UBC’s main campuses in Vancouver and Kelowna are located, respectfully, on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam people and the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

As you likely know, UBC is the province’s largest post-secondary institution. The university has over 70,000 students, and our faculty attract around $700 million of research funding into the province each year. That teaching and research results in positive impacts, such as spinoff companies that create new medical treatments, technologies that make natural resource industries more sustainable, and partnerships with Indigenous communities on social, cultural and economic development.

I would like to focus my brief remarks on how investments in post-secondary education and research are vital to building an inclusive, innovative and resilient province. Our greatest resource in British Columbia is a healthy, well-educated and talented population. B.C.’s post-secondary institutions, through teaching and research, are essential to developing the talents of British Columbians and to helping our students, communities, companies and social institutions realize their full potential and thrive.

The skills and knowledge acquired through advanced education equip people with the skills they need in their careers, from critical thinking, writing and problem-solving to technical and discipline-specific knowledge and skills. We’re fortunate that successive governments have helped build an excellent, well-integrated and accessible post-secondary education system in B.C.

The government’s recent future-ready action plan launched a number of laudable investments that will make our system even better. These include the expansion of student spaces in technology and health programs, new funding for B.C. graduate scholarships, and substantial measures to improve affordability through student aid and new student housing construction. We’re very grateful for these initiatives and look forward to partnering with the government on them.

To build on the strength of the future-ready plan, our recommendations for Budget 2024 are to continue ex­panding in-demand programs in areas such as health care and technology and make further investments in student affordability, especially in the needs-based B.C. access grant and in programs that support Indigenous students. I’d also like to emphasize that support for research is crucial to building the innovative and resilient B.C. economy that we all want to see.

The commercialization of discoveries from UBC labs, and there are countless examples such as the technologies that launch successful companies like AbCellera, are vital to building the B.C. economy. Also of incredible importance are the graduates whose talents are developed in research-intensive programs.

Our students are educated and trained by professors and in labs operating at the leading edge of discovery and innovation. Graduates take this training, their new ideas and perspectives into the economy, both as talented employees driving innovation and, increasingly, as entrepreneurs themselves.

My own experience illustrates this. I’m also a computer science professor and was the co-founder, along with one of my graduate students, of a software company that has grown to employ nearly 100 people in B.C. Many of the graduate students and countless others from my department in university have gone on to start their own companies or to work for leading firms across B.C.

I raise these examples to illustrate the importance of continuing to invest in our research universities. In addition to the investments in our students I noted earlier, ongoing investments are needed for the B.C. knowledge development fund to maximize federal dollars that are coming to B.C., the B.C. graduate scholarship program, academic infrastructure that enables top-tier education and research, and areas where B.C. has strong potential to lead globally, like the life sciences and clean resources and technology.

[12:00 p.m.]

Thank you again for the opportunity to share these re­commendations with the committee.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Gail.

Comments and/or questions?

I’ll start off by saying that you wanted to expand your in-demand programs. Can you maybe list off what you would consider the in-demand programs?

G. Murphy: Overall, UBC over-enrols domestically, so many of our programs are in great demand from the students within our province. Particular programs are in the life sciences, in health and in technology and engineering. Those programs are always very overwhelmingly in de­mand by the students in the province.

R. Leonard: I want to thank you very much for your presentation and just let you know that we’re a little bit in the lagging moments of the morning, but it’s really nice to have that big picture of what our post-secondary institutions can achieve for our economy as well as for British Columbians.

The question that I have is around that ability to take whatever learnings you have and translate it into economic development. I’m wondering if you have stats on that kind of impetus for growth.

G. Murphy: UBC alone has many spinoffs every year. On the exact numbers, we’ll follow up with the committee to make sure they’re accurate.

Leading companies like AbCellera, Stemcell Technologies, Zymeworks, Acuitas and Precision Nanosystems are all core companies within the B.C. life sciences ecosystem that had their genesis at UBC and out of our research labs. If you look at what those companies have been able to grow to, in terms of being billion-dollar companies, you can really see that there’s an incredible outflow, even in just that one area of the economy, from our post-secondary institutions.

We would be happy to follow up with the committee, with an overall picture of the economic development that is coming out of UBC, in both Vancouver and Kelowna.

B. Stewart: Thank you very much, Dr. Murphy. I just wanted to ask…. You mentioned affordability. We’ve heard lots from groups and institutions talking about the cost — whether it’s international students, housing, all of those things.

UBC was given the Endowment Lands back at its start. I know that some of that remains undeveloped. But I just wonder: has there been an effort recently to continue making affordability a priority for the Endowment Lands, with either UBC Properties Trust or whatever organization leads the development on those lands?

G. Murphy: Yeah, UBC continues to look at the land endowment it has, and it’s working towards its campus vision 2050 to make sure that those lands are used in the best possible way for the academic mission of the university. With the governments, we’re able to provide around $400 million that goes to students to help with their accessibility every year. Some $120 million of that comes from UBC, and we’ve increased it substantially over the last five years.

There’s no doubt that, with the cost of living that our students are facing, they do face challenges in affordability. UBC also does have a policy that no UBC student will be denied access due to financial reasons. If we all work together, we can make sure — in particular, for our low-income students that are coming to the institution — that those initial costs are not a barrier for them to be able to pursue knowledge and education, which we know is a great opportunity for their future.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Not seeing any other questions or comments, Dr. Murphy, thank you very much for your presentation this morning-afternoon, so to speak, depending on how the clock runs.

G. Murphy: Thank you very much for the time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We will now recess. If we can try to be back in the room for one o’clock.

The committee recessed from 12:04 p.m. to 1:05 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): We are back for our afternoon sessions today. First up on the docket is Kevin McCort from the Vancouver Foundation.

Kevin, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

VANCOUVER FOUNDATION

K. McCort: Thanks very much. I appreciate it. As mentioned, I’m Kevin, and I’m the president and CEO of the Vancouver Foundation.

I’m joining you today from the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.

As you probably know, the Vancouver Foundation is an 80-year-old community foundation governed by an act of the provincial Legislature. Our mission has been to create healthy, vibrant and liveable communities across B.C. by supporting charities and non-profits.

I’d like to acknowledge that B.C. is leading the way in Canada in recognizing the contributions our sector makes to the province’s social fabric, community development, economy and overall well-being through the creation of a Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-profits. We are grateful for the work that Parliamentary Secretary Dykeman, and Minister Sharma before her, have led in this new role.

About our sector. We’re often overshadowed by the corporate sector, but the charitable and non-profit sector plays a critical role in B.C.’s economy, often in ways that align closely with the long-standing priorities of all governments. Though our sector’s contribution to the social fabric and safety net of our province is often cited, collectively, we’re something of an untapped or under-tapped resource as employers.

Community non-profits in B.C. employ approximately 87,000 individuals, which represents 3.2 percent of the province’s total employed workforce at the end of 2021, and the sector is growing. Over the next ten years, community services are projected to be among the top five occupational groups in B.C — this is from B.C.’s latest labour market outlook forecast; and non-profit-sector job openings went from 11th place to fifth in B.C. between 2021 and 2022.

This growth is reflective of increased need but also an indicator of the sector’s heft as an economic driver, and — this is important to me — the sector is a pathway for employment for many newcomers to our province. Another Statistics Canada report shows that about a quarter of Canadian employees immigrated to Canada at some point in their lives, but that qualifier describes close to half of all non-profit workers.

I could cite statistics all day. I really could. My staff often tease me about my love of stats, but I won’t go any further with the stats. I just wanted to illustrate a couple of examples of how the charitable and non-profit sector matters as an economic driver and one that aligns naturally to government’s commitments to building a strong and fair economy.

There’s more. But the overarching message is: I would ask you to continue to work closely with charities and non-profits; bring us into consultations, as you’re doing today; and ensure that we’re eligible for the programs and supports government offers — not just social policies, but economic and workforce-related policies and programs.

In my last couple of minutes, I’ll actually share my three recommendations. The first one is really to ensure eligibility and inclusion in supports that are often designed for businesses. The non-profit sector really should be fully integrated into government initiatives such as the future-ready plan. Many of these programs are aimed at building a skilled workforce, so they benefit all sectors.

But when government talks about extending support or designing programs to support businesses, the message heard by charities and non-profits is that they are, or think they are, excluded. Yet non-profits can offer insights into skills development and employment in ways that support all workers. Another good example is the StrongerBC work­place innovation fund. That is aimed at for-profit businesses, but charities could surely engage.

The second recommendation is to incentivize giving. Here I’ll draw your attention to what’s recently happened in Alberta, where charitable gifts recently became eligible for up to a 60 percent provincial tax credit on the first $200 of a donation. They raised it from…. It was at 10 percent. But in comparison, B.C. has one of the least generous small-gift credit rates in the country, at just 5.6 percent, which puts us in eighth place.

[1:10 p.m.]

Charitable giving has been in decline across Canada for the last ten years among small donors in particular, at a time when the need for charitable service is climbing. But we believe a more generous tax credit could help slow or reverse this trend.

My third recommendation is to support a sector pension plan. The charitable and non-profit workforce is generally older and lower paid than the rest of the population. We need to support our employees of this burgeoning sector now. Otherwise, they, too, will be in need of programs and services when they retire, creating a vicious cycle.

Now, government support for a sector-wide pension plan would be incredibly helpful. A precedent exists in Ontario, where the OPTrust Select, which is nested within the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, is available to employers in Ontario’s broader public sector, which includes charitable and non-profit organizations that operate in Ontario.

Charities and non-profits could not only pool resources across a wider range of organizations, but also provide greater flexibility for our employees, who may work in multi­ple non-profit workplaces over their careers.

I would like to thank you for your attention to these ideas and welcome any questions you may have.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Kevin, thank you very much for your presentation. Equally, thank you for not spewing out stats for the next little while that’s there.

G. Chow: When you talk about tax credits, are you talking about tax credits to the corporation or individual who donate to charities like the Vancouver Foundation, or non-profits?

K. McCort: It’s to the individual. When the individual makes a donation, they receive a tax credit, and that tax credit is a combination of provincial and federal tax rate. So talking specifically about the provincial component, and drawing the example that Alberta recently raised theirs from 10 percent to 60 percent.

G. Chow: I must say, it’s not very generous, when you make a donation to charity, and the tax write-off…. You do get some, but it could be better.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments?

B. Stewart: Kevin, I wanted to ask you: what’s the…? You’ve used Alberta and that 60 percent. It’s scaled, obviously. You said it’s like a few hundred dollars. I guess the question I have is….

I don’t see a presentation you’ve submitted, but perhaps, maybe, you could share with us the range so that we could look at what’s across the country and so that we know what the average is or what the norm is.

K. McCort: Yes, we have that information.

Just to give you an example of another…. It’s not a statistic. It’s a fact, I guess. If a person makes a $1,000 gift in Alberta, the combined federal-provincial tax credit would be $550. In B.C., it would be $406. So a significant difference on a $1,000 gift. It’s even higher on a $200 gift.

We’ll put that table in our submission so you can see the rates across the country.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Kevin, I have a question with regards to…. You’re talking about a sector-wide pension plan. You mentioned Ontario. Is it available in any other provinces, or is it just an Ontario thing? How long has it been funded for?

K. McCort: I believe it’s only in Ontario, and it was a particular collaboration between the government of Ontario and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. In 2017-2018, the Ontario Nonprofit Network, the ONN, made a recommendation that the Ontario Public Service Employees Union pension plan should be expanded to include people who work in what they call the Ontario broader public sector, which includes charities and non-profits.

They were made eligible for that. There’s a piece they call OPT Select, because it’s a carve-out within the new format. The parallel would be if the B.C. public sector employees pension fund could possibly consider a carve-out.

The Vancouver Foundation, because we couldn’t find a provincial alternative, actually joined, for our staff, a pension plan that also originated in Ontario but is offered to charities across the country. It’s called the CAAT pension plan. The College of Applied Arts and Technology originally started it, but it is a smaller vehicle. The provincial pension plans are what we would think would be a better option than people looking around, as we did, for alternatives.

M. Starchuk (Chair): If there are no other questions, I just would like to follow up.

In Ontario, then, with the non-profit, with those sectors that are there, is the pension plan available to non-union and union employees?

K. McCort: As far as I know, it is. The eligibility is based on the employer. If the employer is a non-profit or charity, then their members are eligible to participate in it.

[1:15 p.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Not seeing any other hands up, Kevin, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon and for what the foundation does for those people in British Columbia.

Our next presenter is Guy Dauncey, Yellow Point Ecological Society.

Guy, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

YELLOW POINT ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY

G. Dauncey: Thank you. I appreciate the time you put into all this and how many different focuses your brains are stretched towards.

I’m going to keep all of my three submissions down to one topic, which is: how do we meet CleanBC’s goal to reduce vehicular trips by 25 percent by 2030? That’s written into the CleanBC plan as a goal, and a focus in particu­lar is on transit.

But a comment first. Obviously, we reduce them by increased use of walking, cycling and transit. One of the ways is to transfer investments from non-essential, expensive highways improvements to walking, cycling and transit. Just as one example, the Patricia Bay–Keating flyover, which was originally costed at $44 million, is now at $77 million. The province is contributing $57 million to that. Putting traffic lights in instead, costing $2 million, would save the province $55 million.

If we took the overall $75 million being spent, that could have paid for 70 kilometres of rapid bus lanes, 880,000 monthly bus passes or a 20 percent increase in the ministry’s budget for public transportation, which is $350 million for this year and for the next two years. If it was spent on active transportation, it could have achieved a sevenfold increase in 2023’s $10 million allocation for the entire province.

The ministry’s current transit ridership goal for 2023-24 is a 25 million person increase in annual ridership, from 241 million to 269 million trips. How can that be achieved?

The first thing I noticed is that the Ministry of Transportation’s transportation plan has a static budget of $350 million a year for all public transport, which is transit and ferries. My first recommendation is that it should be increased to $400 million for the financial year ’24-25 and $450 million for ’25-26.

The second recommendation is very specific. It’s about getting teens onto transit. Kingston, Ontario has devel­oped a permanent program that sees all youth up to age 21 ride free, and every grade 9 student in the region learns about how to take the bus. They also give all school trips on the bus, for teachers and kids…. They ride free.

Now, this program has had a powerful impact. Just by teaching the grade 9 students how to use the bus, how to put a bike rack on, how to pay the tickets, whatever…. Bus trips by youth in 2012 were 28,000. In 2016, they were 600,000. They found that the grade 12 students, on average, now use the transit pass three times more frequently than the grade 9 students. So as the students become older and get familiar with transit, they become more frequent transit users. Then, as adults, they’re going to be familiar with this.

I’d like to recommend that the B.C. government adopt the Kingston model and create a program for every school district in B.C. to do a tuition session for youth, for grade 9 students, on how to ride the bus. When they have the habit of riding the bus, they’re going to continue that into adulthood.

My third recommendation, simply, then, is to extend B.C. Transit’s Get on Board free transit program to everyone aged under 19. Currently it goes up to age 12, so the teenagers get cut off. If we get teenagers familiar with riding the bus, they’ll get an adult habit and be more likely to ride the bus when they move into adulthood.

There we go. I think that was less than five minutes.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Yes, it was. It was definitely less than five minutes. Guy, thank you very much for your presentation.

Comments and/or questions?

I don’t have a question right off the rattle, but the Kingston model that you did talk about is very intriguing to me.

[1:20 p.m.]

I’m looking down at my sheet, and I notice that I don’t see a submission made by yourself. I would suggest that when you do make the submission, it does explain or does include where we would get the information on the Kingston model.

G. Dauncey: I was going to make a written submission as well, but it said on the forms I had to do it two days before my spoken submission. Anyway, I’ll write the written submission by this Friday, so you’ll have the details on that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): That’s great.

R. Leonard: Hi, Guy. I just wanted to ask you to clarify again. I didn’t hear the very beginning of what you were talking about.

The second…. Actually, I’m not sure which number it was. Your recommendation around increasing the budget to $400 million — was that for transit, or was that for active transportation, or for what? From what to that amount.

G. Dauncey: In MOTI’s budget, the $350 million a year is called for…. They call it public transportation. That’s ferries and transit, and it’s static for the next three years. There’s no increase in that budget allocated, but there’s a goal to increase transit ridership by 25 million. So there’s an inconsistency between what B.C. Transit’s goal is and what the ministry’s budget is for that.

R. Leonard: Right. Is there a connection of that piece and the Lower Mainland’s public transit, TransLink? Are you aware of what percentages are going towards the TransLink?

G. Dauncey: I haven’t got any separate data comparing B.C. Transit and TransLink, but I was assuming that all their funding comes through the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. It’s their annual plan that I was referencing with the annual $350-million-a-year budget. Actually, it’s 349-point-something-something.

R. Leonard: Yes. One of the challenges that we’re hearing about is that rural communities have literally no, or very little, transit. The ability to encourage people to use public transit when there isn’t any is a bit of a challenge. So it’s, again, about which priorities you have.

G. Dauncey: In last year’s submission, I made a big point on that. I’m pleased to see there was an announcement, literally in the last three weeks or so, that budget has already been assigned to study the costs of a provincewide rural transportation system. That’s why I didn’t emphasize it in this particular submission.

I think the first piece of work is underway to get the numbers on what that’s going to cost. Rural communities, especially Indigenous communities, do need a safe, reliable bus service, especially when you consider the missing and murdered Aboriginal women.

B. Stewart: Guy, I guess I’m…. I like the idea about educating. I think it’s a good idea. However, I think that there…. Considering how rural British Columbia is, I mean, where is this going to stop? In the sense…. Where is it not going to work? It might work in the Okanagan where there are a quarter-million people or more.

Anyways, I guess I was just going to ask if you had…. At this point, if we were going to adopt it in an urban area, like on southern Vancouver Island, how far do you go? Do you go to Nanaimo, or do you go further? I guess that’s what my, kind of, thoughts…. If you’ve looked at this, I was wondering if you’d thought of that.

G. Dauncey: For the teams on transit, you’d obviously work in a school district area where there is a transit service. There’s no point in…. On the other hand, I don’t know how long it takes. I don’t know how long the Kingston model takes for the kids to learn how to ride the bus, because we’d need to get a provincewide habit going.

There is an intercommunity bus service connecting the communities on Vancouver Island. All the rural communities up to Tofino and Sayward and places — I’m not sure about Sayward — can be part of that. So why not make it provincewide in preparation for that?

B. Stewart: Well, okay. You’ve got a couple of representatives that can answer that question. Thanks, Guy.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Guy, thank you for your presen­tation this afternoon.

I’ve never really coined the phrase provincewide habit, but when it comes to creating the transit riders, I think it’s fine.

G. Dauncey: Thank you. Keep up the good work.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up is Tim Burkhart, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

Tim, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Tim, the floor is yours.

YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON
CONSERVATION INITIATIVE

T. Burkhart: Well hello, and thank you for making the time and taking the time to listen to constituents today.

My name is Tim Burkhart. I am the director of landscape protection for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, or Y2Y, calling in today from the unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw Nation on Vancouver Island.

Y2Y is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and connecting habitats so people and nature can thrive.

[1:25 p.m.]

As our government works to achieve British Columbia’s goals of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, economic development and environmental sustainability, I’d like to highlight some opportunities to conserve British Columbia’s incredible wild places, advance land-based reconciliation and build in resilience to natural infrastructure that protects society and preserves biodiversity.

Our first recommendation today is green infrastructure investments for B.C.’s transportation corridors. You may not know that hundreds of large animals are killed every year in B.C., especially along Highway 3 between Sparwood and Alberta. This is where four of B.C.’s wildlife vehicle collisions hot spots are. Direct social costs include human injury and vehicle insurance claims costing about $2.8 million per year.

Solutions are now being implemented in a collaboration led by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and the Ministry of Forests supported by Y2Y the Ktunaxa Nation, local community scientists and others with a project called Reconnecting the Rockies. This five-year project includes wildlife underpasses and overpasses linked together with wildlife exclusion fencing. It’s a major overpass at the highest priority area.

Funding is in place for the early phases, and total project costs are estimated at up to $25 million. It’s not a large sum for infrastructure projects, and Reconnecting the Rockies has a return on investment of approximately 15 years, while saving the lives of hundreds of animals and reducing human injury and death. We recommend fully funding this project.

I’d also like to note that recently the U.S. Federal Highway Administration announced a wildlife crossings pilot program with dedicated funding of $350 million for collision mitigation infrastructure over three years. We recommend that B.C. look at this model, earmarking dedicated annual funding of $10 million for infrastructure to reduce wildlife vehicle collisions and support connectivity.

Our second recommendation is Indigenous-led conservation…. We recommend that Budget 2024 provide funding to significantly expand engagement on Indigenous-led conservation initiatives including new protected and conserved areas, conservation-based businesses and the development of stewardship plans. Y2Y is very encouraged by the mandate commitments of the government to work with Indigenous peoples to achieve the nature agreements goals of 30 percent protection by 2030, including through Indigenous protected and conserved areas.

However, we believe the current budget for Water, Land Resource Stewardship is not sufficient to achieve these commitments and the government’s obligations under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. We have seen overwhelming interest from Indigenous communities for advancing initiatives to conserve wildlife and habitat, with more than 60 proposals to the federal government’s Canada nature fund.

The Ministry of Water Land and Resource stewardship service plan states the intention to nearly double the new land use planning processes in partnership with First Nations by 2026, but this significant increase will require additional funding support including dedicated funding for nations to develop their own stewardship plans.

Given the new mandate commitments and recognizing the province’s obligations under DRIPA and the provisions of the pending nature agreement, we recommend increasing funding dedicated to providing capacity to Indigenous governments, communities and stakeholders for the creation of new IPCAs, whether through modernized land use planning or direct government-to-government negotiations. We recommend that operating expenses for the core business area around land use planning and policy be tripled to $170 million.

Our third recommendation is dedicated funding for fish and wildlife habitat management and restoration. The abundance of fish and wildlife creatures — large and small, iconic and obscure, common and rare — that the province once had are dwindling to scarcity in my lifetime. This is concerning for all our communities: for nature clubs, birdwatchers, hunters, guide-outfitters, wildlife viewers, tourism operators. We now have endangered steelhead and caribou, record-low salmon and moose populations and declining mountain sheep and mule deer populations. As we learned with caribou, it takes orders of magnitude more money to bring a species back from the brink than it does to keep it from declining in the first place.

We should be striving to strengthen our communities and economy based on healthy and resilient ecosystems. Y2Y is a founding member of the Fish, Wildlife and Habitat Coalition, and as part of that coalition, we are echoing the call of the B.C. Wildlife Federation for dedicated funding of $200 million to support the management and restoration of fish and wildlife habitat.

Conclusion. Polling shows that our community support protecting nature. They support these investments. By investing in an environmentally healthier future, we can set a course for a stronger and more resilient economy and communities. We look forward to seeing expanded funding for green infrastructure, Indigenous-led conservation and fish and wildlife habitat, so people and nature can….

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Tim.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Tim, for the presentation.

I’ve got to say I’m completely on board with two of the three. The second one maybe…. The one that I’m not may be the 30 by 30. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that bold initiative, I would say.

[1:30 p.m.]

With your point No. 3 on dedicated funding, I think we can find, with dedicated funding to fish and wildlife and habitat, we can understand the management plans that need to go into getting 30 by 30. Just dedicating land, in my opinion, isn’t enough. We need to properly manage that land base.

I come from that area where you talk on point 1, on highway corridor No. 3, where we’re seeing the most wildlife collisions anywhere in the province. Those overpasses and underpasses are absolutely fantastic. I’ve seen them firsthand — how they work. That’s great work, and we need to do it a lot more. I totally support your recommendations in No. 1.

But on the dedicated funding side, how do you see that working best for fish and wildlife and habitat? What kind of structure does that need to be in? Does it go into general revenue, to be dedicated out to wildlife and habitat, or should it be more independent, arm’s reach from government, so that we can incorporate other streams of revenue such as philanthropy, corporate donations, those kind of things, Something like the Freshwater Fisheries Society act has? How do you see that dedicated funding working its best? What model?

T. Burkhart: That’s a really, really important question. I think I would want to get back to you with specifics. But in general, I think a mix of looking at where they are experts on the ground, as you pointed out, folks who are in communities who are engaged on the land base, whether Indigenous communities and governments or hunting and guide-outfitting organizations, conservation groups — that’s where a lot of the expertise would be.

I’d say there are some very interesting models we could look at. The more recent watershed security fund could be an example of how this type of mechanism could work, but I can get back to you with some more specific thoughts on that.

As I said, this specific call, that we are echoing, was on behalf of the Fish, Wildlife and Habitat Coalition. I’d encourage you to ask that question of folks from the B.C. Wildlife Federation and others who have really led on that specific piece.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): I’m aware of the Fish, Wildlife and Habitat Coalition. Great group. Lots of organizations there have joined together. Quite honestly, a lot of those groups would never have been in the same room together maybe ten years ago, but nothing brings together people more than a crisis. So I totally agree with that.

Maybe look towards a private member’s bill that’s in front of the Legislature right now, which brings that funding model together. I would just like your support on that. Thanks.

T. Burkhart: Thanks, Tom. I’ll definitely look into that.

R. Leonard: I’m curious. I know that within our region, we got involved with natural corridors as a model of how to preserve nature and enhance it. So the Y2Y conservation efforts have been around how long?

T. Burkhart: For 30 years.

R. Leonard: Okay. In terms of connectivity, are you seeing that, actually, on the ground at all? You’ve talked about different initiatives where there’s conflict, but I’m curious about that connectivity.

T. Burkhart: Yes, absolutely. We’ve seen an increase in, sort of, effective conservation areas by 80 percent in those 30 years and, as a result, linking up specific wildlife populations over large distances.

Challenges remain. The biggest challenge being, currently, connecting the Yellowstone grizzly population with the remainder of grizzly bears across North America. They are currently cut off by two interstate highways. That’s a priority. But we have seen enhanced connectivity across the region in the last 30 years.

R. Leonard: Great. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much, Tim, for your presentation this afternoon.

Next up we have Blaine Cook.

Blaine, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

BLAINE COOK

B. Cook: Hello. Good afternoon, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Blaine Cook.

I’m speaking to you from, and a resident in, the exquisite West Kootenay region, a place I proudly call home and recognize as the unceded, traditional lands of the Sinixt Nation.

In today’s increasingly complex world, numerous budgetary challenges demand our attention, including climate change, reconciliation, immigration and wealth inequality. As a successful technology entrepreneur and innovator whose spouse holds a PhD in distributed manufacturing and digital innovation, I am personally very interested in how the government can foster innovation, start-ups and sustainable economic alternatives to primary extraction across our province.

[1:35 p.m.]

However, today I’d like to focus on three issues I believe are the most pressing in our region: housing, health care and transportation.

Housing is, in my mind, foremost. Like many regions, the West Kootenays grapple with the escalating costs of housing. To put it in perspective, in 1972, my parents, at the age of 33, purchased a house in Creston. Adjusted for inflation, this house cost $115,000, affordable on their single-earner income of just $17 an hour, or $35,000 a year.

Fast-forward to today. An equivalent house with 50 years of extra wear and tear costs nearly $400,000, almost four times as much. However, inflation-adjusted average incomes have dropped by 8 percent, creating an im­possible situation for younger generations. To put it in stark terms, a dual-income, childless couple with master’s degrees in their early thirties today is, on average, less financially secure than my single-income grandparents with four children, without even a high school education, were in 1972.

I applaud the many recent steps made by the government to address housing affordability. However, I strongly believe the province needs to go further. I am a homeowner but would gladly see the value of my home decrease if it meant that my community was vibrant and resilient.

Too many older people in this province complain that young people don’t want to work, yet the vast majority of their own wealth effectively came not from hard work but by being fortunate enough to buy a home at a historically advantageous moment. This attitude needs to change, and we need to build towards a province that everyone can comfortably call home, not just the wealthy. A failure to do so represents a profound threat to the financial sustainability of the region and the quality of life of all of its residents.

I’m going to transition to health care. We face a daunting set of challenges. Our rural and remote communities have always grappled with health care access. The situation has worsened in recent years.

I speak from personal experience. After returning from the U.K. three years ago, I’ve been waiting, unsuccessfully, for a family doctor. The average wait for a doctor on the health connect registry for the West Kootenay region is over 600 days and growing.

Though there are ostensibly drop-in clinics in Nelson, the reality of accessing these services is dire. One clinic is only open for two hours on weekends, while the other only accepts phone appointments, and it can take days on hold to secure a slot for an appointment weeks into the future. This current system disproportionately affects our young population and those without the flexibility to take significant amounts of unscheduled time off.

Universal health care should indeed be universal. How­ever, the reality falls short, as a significant percentage of the population, especially in our region, struggles for access. The current system, where nearly half of the population is essentially denied access, it is neither universal nor sustainable. I urge the government to reconsider the funding model to ensure equitable and effective health care for every B.C. resident, even if it means moving away, in the short term, from the attached care model.

Now let’s navigate to transportation. Outside of the Lower Mainland and south Island, B.C.’s transportation networks are in a deep crisis. This not only affects supply chains and tourism but also the social connectivity essential to our region’s vitality.

Booking, any day for the next two weeks, a return flight from Castlegar to Vancouver costs over $1,000. Even the average advanced booking price stands at a prohibitive $600. The biweekly private bus service to Vancouver costs $320 return, or residents can take a lengthy drive at roughly $250 return. This economic and social isolation from the rest of the province makes imagining a life here difficult or impossible for many who would dream of building businesses and raising families in our region.

It’s essential to acknowledge that expecting everyone to own and maintain a car for long-distance travel is a failure of imagination and, as mentioned earlier, counter to the province’s own goals. Countries like Switzerland have demonstrated the viability of regular rail transport, even in remote regions, that support an ever-growing economy based on tourism, agriculture, and secondary manufacturing. It’s time we explore more affordable, sustainable, efficient and proven transportation options like rail that can effectively connect our region and foster economic growth.

Affordable housing, accessible health care and robust, efficient transportation are the cornerstones of a stronger and more resilient West Kootenay region. We must invest in solutions that enhance the quality of life and ensure a thriving, connected community.

I eagerly anticipate how the upcoming budget will ad­dress these critical issues, ultimately enhancing the quality of life for everyone in our stunning region.

Thank you again for your time and the opportunity to speak to today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Blaine, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

I have a question. It’s probably easy to answer. Do you represent a group?

B. Cook: No, I don’t.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Anybody else with a question and/or a comment for Blaine?

[1:40 p.m.]

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for presenting today.

I’m curious around the…. You’ve talked about the transportation of humans from place to place, about connectivity and the use of the digital world to make connections between remote communities and the services that they need.

B. Cook: For sure. I’m a remote worker. I have been for a long time. I think one of the interesting things versus when I grew up in the East Kootenays to today is that I wouldn’t be able to live in this region without remote work.

But one of the pressures that I see with people who are moving here and are able to work remotely is that they do need that sort of transportation to complete the picture. Without that transportation, if you have to make it to….

I have a friend who works for a company based out of Toronto, and for her it’s a pretty epic quest to get to her meetings. She’s an executive and has to go to regular meetings, and she is questioning quite strongly whether or not she can continue to live in the region. I think her family moving away would be a huge loss for the region. So there’s sort of that dual challenge. As more people move here, we do need more transportation, I think.

A. Walker: Thank you, Blaine. The three issues you’ve raised are the issues that we hear regularly at the doorstep and from our constituents. So I appreciate these.

You mentioned the 600-day wait-list with the health connect registry. Recognizing, of course, that we’ve got limited health professionals all across the province and the country and the world, what steps would you like to see, especially in your neck of the woods, for increasing access to health care?

B. Cook: Thanks. I think primarily just having drop-in access. I recognize that we can’t give everyone a family doctor and that there are some pretty significant structural challenges facing attempts to do that. But just even having any access to a doctor would be a good first step in recognizing the crisis that we’re in.

I think housing is also a big factor. I think doctors look at the region and say: “Well, I can’t move there. It would actually cost me more to move out there, and I wouldn’t be able to travel, than living in a city.” So addressing those things, I think, would go a long way to making recruiting successful. But yeah, certainly making drop-in clinics more accessible.

I guess the other thing I would raise is…. I’ve worked with some digital government services in the U.K. And the health connect registry — I had to file a freedom-of-information request to get that information. There’s no visibility into where you are on the wait-list, if you’re on the wait-list. If you call 611, they’ll register you on the wait-list, but they won’t tell you…. If you move from one community to another, does that put you at the back of the line? Who knows? There’s zero information.

I think the registry is an excellent step forward, but there needs to be a lot more investment into making that service much more transparent and much more usable by people who are relying on it for their health care.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments or questions?

Okay. Blaine, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. I think it’s always enlightening to the committee to have individuals provide us with their personal touch on what needs to happen with the 2024 budget. Thank you very much for your presentation.

B. Cook: Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Troy Clifford, Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., CUPE Local 873.

Troy, are you with us?

T. Clifford: I should be good now. I was having some Wi-Fi….

I’m waiting for Dave Deines, who’s our lead on things.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. All right, Troy, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five min­utes of questions and/or comments.

Troy, the floor is yours.

CUPE LOCAL 873,
AMBULANCE PARAMEDICS OF B.C.

T. Clifford: Okay. Thank you for the opportunity, and I believe you got our pre-submission. Obviously, I’m Troy Clifford, provincial president with the Ambulance Paramedics.

[1:45 p.m.]

Dave Deines I believe was going to join us. I’m not sure if he had the same technical problems I did. He’s our prov­incial vice-president and does a lot of our professional practice side of things because he has a dual role as a federal president of the Paramedic Association of Canada, which is our dual role as a profession in B.C. and a union.

That’s why you see us doing a lot of the political action and lobby efforts around the professional side of things, as well as the scope of practice and service delivery in those areas that our members, quite frankly, identify with. We have that dual role, which is unique to B.C. Most other unions have a professional body and a union. It’s more to sort of outline that perspective.

I think there’s sort of three areas that we’ve been really working with all three levels of government — federally, provincially and the local governments. Although we fall under the Ministry of Health, the Provincial Health Services Authority and ultimately BCEHS, which is the body empowered to run the ambulance service, we have a dual role in B.C. We’re designated as a public safety occupation, like our partners in police and fire, but we’re also a health discipline, and we’re identified as part of the health sector.

The big areas we’ve been really focusing on in the last couple of years that I think would be the focus of areas of finance and support from government are around being part of the conversation for primary response teams. What I mean by that is in community health and the primary care model, where we know that we’re challenged with mental health and addictions, and we’re challenged with service delivery in communities, that’s putting pressures on the medical system.

For instance, we know we don’t have enough doctors, and that’s pressure, but that’s putting pressure on an ambulance service that is doing a lot of work. We see more peo­ple in the community. We see people maybe not getting their medication. This government has done a lot of good work with those, but we need to have paramedics as part of that conversation so that we can be part of the solution.

A lot of communities are going out on their own and have a Car 57, or whatever the car number they use in their respective community, where they have a mental health nurse or a mental health specialist with a peace officer or a safety officer. Right now, in most communities across Canada, but in B.C., paramedics and police officers are doing those calls at two o’clock in the morning — not because maybe they’re the best for that patient or that person having a mental health challenge, but because that’s the only resource that’s available.

That’s tying up resources in communities that may not be the best care. We know, unless somebody is having acute intervention, that maybe the best place for them isn’t in the back of a police car, an ambulance or an emergency room. So it’s not about just adding additional ambulance resources. It’s about getting people the right care in their time and alternate pathways, whether that be palliative, seniors, community health, diabetics and/or addiction and mental health.

We’re doing a lot of good work with the ambulance service, but I think this is an area where it has been proven across the country, through the community paramedic program, that in some cases the business case can be cost-neutral or actually more efficient from a financial perspective. I know BCEHS and the ambulance paramedics have been working on these solutions, but I think we need to enhance those community response teams to really address that.

With that comes additional resources for our rural, re­mote and Indigenous communities, and in fast-growing areas like the Fraser Valley, the Lower Mainland and Metro areas and the larger urban centres, like Nanaimo, Victoria, Kamloops and Kelowna, where we’re seeing this growth of call volumes. That’s probably the biggest area where we can be solution-based and supportive of it.

Then the other thing is continuing the work with mental health and addictions. We know that paramedics and dispatchers are the highest profession for mental health injuries, and we’re doing a lot of good work, but the continued investment in pre-injury supports — psychological supports and that — will, long term, help us get sustainability.

Those are the two big areas that we’ve been looking at. Then continuing to have evidence-based health care that supports the conversation of paramedics in that. That’s through Health Canada. Recently, in the transfer payments to B.C., one of the key stipulations is that it’s evidence-based.

We’ve been lobbying nationally to ensure that paramedics are part of that Health Canada evidence, so that we can support paramedics being part of that conversation and the best practices of where we fit into that community health.

I see my time has run out.

I know that’s a lot of information to throw at you, but those are really the areas where we can be solution-based — part of the solution from a financial perspective and a business-case perspective.

[1:50 p.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Troy, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

S. Chant: Hi, Troy. Nice to see you. Can you give me a little bit of an outline, at the moment, of how many people are on LTD related to mental health that’s leading to some of the shortages of staff in the ambulance area? Thank you.

T. Clifford: Absolutely. I meet with the senior leadership at WorkSafeBC, with our health and wellness director and with our mental health coordinator provincially. We’re meeting on a monthly basis, but we meet quarterly.

Their numbers report that over 30 percent of our members are off on WorkSafe mental health claims, in our criti­cal incident stress management program, either through our peer debriefers or through the psychologists available through that program, or self-managing through their practitioner at home or at work. Those are the ones that are reported and that we know of. That’s the highest of any profession out there.

We have presumptive legislation in B.C. that says if I get a psychological injury as a result of work I do as a paramedic, a dispatcher or a first responder…. It’s presumed it’s as a result of my work. We still have to go through the process to get a diagnosis and that sort of stuff. It’s similar to how the firefighters have cancer as a presumed legislation.

We’ve done a lot of good work since that has been in place for post-injury, so once I put my hand up and say I’m injured. But where we’re seeing it now is we’re not doing the work as good in preventative and supports to get us there. I think that’s the key area. We’ve been trying to work with the government, BCEHS, PHSA and supporters to get those preventative maintenance, if you wish, programs and supports in place.

With that, recently, in July of ’2 1, after the heat dome, the Minister of Health announced that included in those supports would be family support. We know we’re injuring our families as a result of the work we’re doing.

There needs to be a continued investment in the pre-injury stuff. The work we’re doing is really well done and collaboratively with the employer, the union and the government on that.

It’s really evidence-based. We know that these injuries are happening. It’s tough work and the cumulative stuff of years and years of doing this work. I don’t think you can do this work for a period of time without it somehow impacting your wellness. I’ve been doing it for 36 years. I’m fortunate that I’m doing pretty good, but I know it has changed me, definitely.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions or comments?

A. Walker: Thank you, Troy, for the presentation but also for those 36 years of service. Our province is certainly much better off for it.

You mentioned the Car programs. I’m just wondering. What would that look like as far as a partnership with the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. and the RCMP?

T. Clifford: Actually, it’s a really good team approach. Federally, the government is doing a lot of work on these primary health care models. Minister Dix announced last year, at the UBCM, how we need to have these conversations on multidiscipline teams.

How it would work…. We already have low-acuity re­sponse teams. You see these SUVs and community paramedic programs in rural and remote.

We have the low acuity, which can divert…. They may not need an ambulance. We can send the SUV or a mini­van to these with paramedics in them. They’re single response units. In the Lower Mainland, we have the larger buses and that. They can take people in wheelchairs that need to have…. They can take them to alternate sites, or they can help them on scene.

They have a simple thing. They don’t have a prescription. They can work with them. Rather than have an am­bulance or take them to the emergency department, they can work with a physician or one of our EPOS, our online doctors, that will help us fill that prescription. That can help.

What it would look like is…. We could either be part of those teams or respond to do the paramedic assessment or referrals in conjunction with the mental health specialists or the public safety officers. They could either be part of that team or respond in parallel to that, similar to what we do in community paramedics in rural and remote B.C.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Troy, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon and, I think it was pointed out by Adam, thank you very much for your service of 36 years.

I’m very happy to hear that you’ve got a section that’s set aside for pre-injury supports. In the business that you’re in, to be proactive about it is very, very important to the longevity of somebody’s career.

T. Clifford: I think that’s important. I work as a paramedic, and I reflect, I think, what our 4,600 members across the province really are looking for and feeling. We really want to be part of solutions and health care at the primary level. That’s why we do this. So I think any support….

[1:55 p.m.]

If you guys need any further follow-up, there’s a lot of documents I can provide to you for support and information on these primary teams and community paramedics and these solutions. We’ve been really lobbying and working hard on these, not just being the “these are the problems” but really being part of the solution, I think. That’s where we’ll get through this stuff.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you very much, Troy.

Next up is Rita Koutsodimos, B.C. Alliance for Healthy Living.

Rita, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

B.C. ALLIANCE FOR HEALTHY LIVING

R. Koutsodimos: Good afternoon, everyone. I’m grateful to be joining you from the beautiful traditional territory of the Squamish.

The health charities and organizations that make up the B.C. Alliance for Healthy Living have been working together since 2003 to prevent avoidable chronic disease and promote the health of all British Columbians.

I’m sure that this committee has heard extensively about the needs of the health care system struggling to keep up with demand. I would like to remind members of the committee that health promotion measures can also help to reduce pressure on our acute care system by keeping people healthy physically and mentally well.

Coming out of COVID-19 has given many British Columbians a new appreciation for their health. From the data, we know that it has been particularly hard on children. With that in mind, I’m asking you to consider in­creasing taxes to reduce youth vaping, expanding income supports to address food security and dedicating funding for active and safe routes to school.

Youth vaping is personal to me, as it is likely to most parents. Despite the provincial vaping action plan, we continue to have a youth vaping epidemic. My two boys tell me that most of the teenagers that they know vape, and it’s across social groups. It’s the athletes and the academics as well as the alternative crowd. They vape in school bathrooms, and in a class, they hide the vapour by swallowing it.

Inhaling these toxic chemicals leads to short-term respiratory and cardiovascular effects, but it also interferes with brain development. I am absolutely terrified to think what the health research is going to be telling us ten to 20 or 30 years from now.

The number of 16- to 19-year-olds who consider themselves addicted to vaping went from one-quarter in 2017 to two-thirds in 2022. Ninety percent of the youth use fruit flavours despite the regulations and say it’s difficult to quit. However, B.C. teens do say that the more expensive vapour products are, the harder it is for them to purchase, which is why we are strongly recommending that government continue to raise taxes on vapour products and strengthen vaping control policy.

Food insecurity is another acute health issue. Chronic stress raises cortisol levels, elevating disease risk for cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, as well as inadequate vegetable and fruit consumption. My 13-year-old recently started at a grocery store, and he came home and said: “Mom, I can’t believe how expensive groceries are and how many people shoplift.” The store manager says it’s gotten out of control since inflation has driven up food costs, and it’s people that have shopped there for years. It’s middle-aged moms and senior citizens.

At the provincial level, that’s 730,000 people, including one in six children, that cannot afford to eat the most basic nutritious diet, according to the BCCDC’s most recent food costs report. Leading researchers on food security will tell you that this is primarily an income problem. It has not and will not be solved by charity, so we urge the members to raise assistance rates to the poverty line according to market basket thresholds.

[2:00 p.m.]

Also, because many working people struggle with food security, we ask government to consider an income-adjusted tax benefit to make healthy food accessible to all. As I said, the pandemic was particularly hard on children’s health and, specifically, their activity rates. In fact, less than half are active enough today to meet the guidelines for healthy development.

Active commuting to school is an affordable way to get more activity, and research shows that children who do it are more likely to achieve those guidelines and continue the habit as they age. We recommend investing in programming and infrastructure to support safe and active routes to school. BCAHL did some research in small towns and cities across B.C. and found that this was a real gap for most communities. This is critical for a generation that needs to move more for their physical and mental wellness and adapt to a changing climate.

Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration. I certainly appreciate your public service.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Rita, thank you very much for your presentation.

B. Banman: Rita, thank you very much.

You’ve brought on something…. Prevention is actually, I believe, true health. I’ve often said that we call it health care, but you don’t enter the system, really, until you start to lose your health, for many of us. It becomes the managing of diseases more than it is…. You’re at the heart of trying to prevent that. I want to thank you for that.

What would you suggest? Did you do anything with regard to vaping, as to what price point it would take — for the youth, at least — as a huge disincentive to be able to do this? What would you suggest we raise the tax to?

R. Koutsodimos: Well, there are two different ways you could go. You could raise the provincial tax rate, or you could also participate in the federal vaping framework that has been established. It’s hard to say for sure, but I think this is going to take some monitoring, and it’s just going to take more, just staying on top of the issue.

S. Chant: Hi there, and thanks for the work that you do. It’s really appreciated.

Looking at the active-commuting-to-school component, how much work do you think we need to do with the parents on that one?

R. Koutsodimos: As I mentioned, we did some research with small communities. We went out to communities that were between 1,000 and 30,000, largely because there’s not a lot of research that has been done, with towns that size, on active commuting.

What we see is that parents are somewhat nervous about letting their kids bike and walk to school because of traffic and safety concerns. When you provide infrastructure and programming support, you can really help parents feel more confident in letting their children walk and bike independently to school.

In years past, we’ve recommended $100 million for active transportation at a provincial level for all programming. That is in line with some of the capital costs that go out for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. I think that a nice, fulsome investment could be something around $30 million to help schools and municipal governments work with schools on the infrastructure towards schools and also supporting that with programming in schools.

Ontario had a cool model where they ranked all of the schools according to traffic incidents and rated them ac­cording to who had the worst safety and who had the best safety. They started with the worst 20 schools and invested in improving the walking and cycling infrastructure to those schools, and then made a commitment that each year they would continue with the next down the list — which, I thought, was a very intelligent approach.

[2:05 p.m.]

B. Stewart: Thanks, Rita. Well, you have solved problem 3 with 1, meaning tax the vaping material, and we’ll have some funds.

Anyway, I want to ask about food security. I may have missed this, but I wanted to know what your ideas were around how we get the costs down, these inflationary costs. Have you got any recommendations?

R. Koutsodimos: Well, global inflation is beyond my scope of knowledge, but it’s certainly adding to existing challenges. Some of the leading researchers on this issue, out of the University of Toronto and the PROOF program, have really analyzed all different methods for addressing food security.

They just keep on coming back to how household food insecurity really is an income problem, which is why we have recommended raising assistance rates, because they’re just not keeping up with the real costs. Thinking about children’s health and wellness, there are kids and families that are not eating well. That is affecting their physical wellness, mental health, anxiety and depression, and their ability to focus and do well at school.

As well as income supports for raising assistance rates, I also think that we’re starting to make some progress on universal school food. That’s something that I’ve seen coming up, and it can make a difference during the school year. But the reason we’re suggesting an income tax credit is that that can go out to those working poor people, too, who are struggling to make ends meet.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Rita, thank you very much this afternoon for your presentation and for the work that you do.

Our next presenter is Joanne Di Nardo from Arthritis Society Canada.

Joanne, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Joanne, the floor is yours.

ARTHRITIS SOCIETY CANADA

J. Di Nardo: Thanks for having me today. Arthritis Society Canada — we’re a national charity. We were founded by Mary Pack. That was in 1948 in B.C. We are present in two buildings, in Victoria and Vancouver, operating a Mary Pack arthritis program.

We represent six million Canadians and 750,000 British Columbians living with arthritis today. There is no cure, and the fire of arthritis can cause excruciating pain, limited mobility and diminished quality of life. It is a leading cause of workplace disability and one of the major health challenges facing our health care system today. More than 1.2 million British Columbians will have arthritis by 2035. So today I’m asking for bold and innovative action, needed immediately.

Recommendation 1 from us is to reduce wait times for joint replacement surgeries. For hip and knee replacements, arthritis is the leading cause. The benchmark wait time to receive a hip and/or knee replacement is six months — still a long benchmark, but the benchmark. The most recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that 38 percent and 44 percent of patients in B.C. waiting for hip and knee replacements, respectively, did not have their surgeries on time.

Surgery delays are devastating for individuals and can lead to significant additional costs for the health care system due to associated comorbidities, weight gain and other conditions, like mental health and other challenges.

We do commend the three-year funding commitment to reduce wait-lists for surgeries and diagnostic imaging in the 2022 budget, but we know money alone is not going to fix wait times. We need innovative solutions, and we’ve proposed those solutions in a report called The Wait: Addressing Canada’s Critical Backlog of Hip and Knee Replacement Surgeries.

We have a few concrete recommendations around ensuring that we have innovative models of care and that we replicate those, shared widely, standardizing patient data collection and reporting on those across the country, so that we can set actual national standards and benchmarks that can be met.

[2:10 p.m.]

We do believe that the federal government has a role to play in all of that — utilizing digital technology to reduce wait times and maximize the limited resources in health care and coordination of care, and increasing access to community-based joint health management programs. We know that we can have appropriate candidates for surgery on a list if we can manage, pre-op and post-op, with these community programs.

Recommendation 2 is investing in arthritis-specific pri­mary and community care. We know that people with arthritis need that timely access to many care providers, from general practitioners, specialists, therapists, social workers.

We have been working with stakeholders like Dr. Kam Shojania, from Vancouver Coastal Health, along with the Provincial Health Services Authority, to implement a provincial electronic arthritis triage tool. That’s focused on population-based approaches to improving early diagnosis and treatment for people living with either inflammatory or osteoarthritis.

This tool would be able to streamline the referral process for patients on this care pathway. It would reduce the need for expensive medication and surgery. We’ve had some promising discussions already with hospital and provincial health services at the Ministry of Health, and we are meeting with them again to continue those discussions on the development and, hopefully, the implementation of this triage tool.

Dr. Shojania has indicated that some of the key impacts of implementing this model of care are a strong return on investment; health care system cost avoidance, direct and indirect; and improving access to appropriate care. You have the right patient, the right provider and the right care at the right time. It’s patient-centred and patient co-designed. This model can be applied to other chronic diseases, not just arthritis.

Recommendation 3 is ensuring access to a range of arthritis treatment options. As we know, there is no cure for arthritis at the moment. So access to medications is critical, and that access has to be without financial, geographic or administrative barriers or risks of shortages.

We know it takes a multitude of trial-and-error treatments to find what works for patients. In that vein, we want to ensure that the pipeline to access many treatments remains as open as possible so that people can find a way to manage their pain and get back to being productive and living a strong quality of life.

Medical cannabis. Medical cannabis is medication, an important pain and symptom management option for people living with the fire of arthritis. We know that one in four Canadian adults uses it to manage arthritis. We really think it should be without the provincial tax. B.C. could exempt the provincial tax for medical cannabis, and that could provide some financial relief and also show the distinction between medical and recreational.

Thank you for inviting me to present. We look forward to working with the B.C. government to address the challenges and opportunities.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Joanne, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

S. Chant: Joanne, thank you very much for your presentation.

We had Mary Pack at Lions Gate Hospital for many years. It’s moved into our community, and it’s been a very effective program.

On average, how many people…? What percentage of the population is looking at delayed surgeries or not getting surgeries within a year that are recommended?

J. Di Nardo: There’s a percentage of people who are meeting the benchmark. That’s how CIHI reports it.

In B.C., you have 62 percent of hip surgeries that are meeting that benchmark, and you have 56 percent that are not meeting that benchmark. Across the country, B.C. is not doing bad but still has room for improvement, where you have 57 percent of Canadians meeting that benchmark in hip and 50 percent in knee.

Prior to the pandemic, B.C. was in a better place. The pandemic happened. Obviously, delays happened. There were some improvements, but we’re stagnated. We’re not seeing the true impact of some of the policies and investments that have been made, from the surgical centre standpoint, to improve that access to surgery.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Joanne, full disclosure. I’m a reci­pient of a knee replacement that was done on time. In fact, I did the Grouse Grind six months to the day, to the hour, after having my knee replaced.

I’m really curious about the arthritis triage tool that you talked about. Could you just expand on that?

J. Di Nardo: Dr. Kam Shojania is the great wizard be­hind that. We’ve supported him through it.

It’s a virtual model. It would intake people virtually, understand what they need and then triage them either on the inflammatory arthritis or the osteoarthritis lane, depending on what they need. Through there, then they would go through….

If it’s inflammatory arthritis, look at whether there are any models of care that could help to manage their symptoms through medication protocols or other preventative protocols to find the right treatment for them.

[2:15 p.m.]

If it’s osteoarthritis, you’d look at what we refer to as community joint management programs like the GLA:D program. I think there’s OASIS in B.C. We have the arthritis rehabilitation and education program here in Ontario. All similar models that look at osteoarthritis management from a community joint management program to keep them out of surgery until they’re that perfect candidate.

This triage tool really avoids these multiple setbacks and multiple waits and understands the patient from the get-go, with a virtual intake, lots of questions and then sending them into the right lane and utilizing health care professionals from all facets. Those are nurse practitioners, rheumatologists, occupational therapists and social workers.

B. Banman: I basically have two questions.

When you have delays…. I was a chiropractor. I would see people that were forced on delays. What are the extra costs that you have due to extra rehab, the fact that their quality of life…? They become so deconditioned that they actually now really struggle to get back to where they once were. What data do you have on that?

Then the second one is with regards to the medical…. There are many medical reasons for that. How do you stop them…? “Hey, I’ve got a medical ticket. I’ll go down to the store and get it for you.” That’s probably the reason…. How do you control the loss of the tax for recreational use? Do you have any suggestions, or has anyone else done anything to prevent that?

J. Di Nardo: For the first question on the delays…. In terms of data on cost or cost avoidance or the impact, we don’t really have those numbers. We haven’t seen them. We are, actually, in the midst of doing a report on the state of arthritis in Canada, and that sort of opens up all the areas in which we definitely need to collect more data to understand that better.

We know the impact of not getting surgery quickly enough could be…. As we said, arthritis is a leading cause of workplace disability. You’re keeping people out of the workforce if you can’t get them to mobility. You’re keeping people away from picking up their children or grandchildren or just being active members of society. So there’s that and the mental health impacts. The comorbidities that go with arthritis can be excruciating and very much along the same lines as someone who is suffering with arthritis.

From the medical standpoint…. I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of reducing stigma and understanding that medical cannabis is used for pain management and symptom management. There’s a lot of education that has to go behind implementing a tax policy. Those should be done in conjunction to ensure that the education is happening at the same time as the policy — and hearing from patients, using those patients as spokespeople.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you for your presentation this afternoon, Joanne.

Our next presenter is Julia Boyle from AutismBC.

Julia, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

AUTISMBC

J. Boyle: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Julia Boyle. I’m the executive director of AutismBC.

For 48 years, AutismBC has supported autistic people by providing parents and communities with autism-specific knowledge and engaging autistic people to create stronger, more diverse communities.

Our first recommendation. AutismBC welcomes and celebrates the passing of Bill S-203 for a national autism strategy. We recommend that the B.C. government commit $1 million and cross-ministerial engagement to develop a provincial autism framework, as is currently being done in other jurisdictions.

A provincial strategy is needed to respond to this new federal legislation. Without a provincial autism framework, it is likely that B.C. will not be able to benefit from the federal funding transfers. With federal deadlines set for the next 18 months, B.C. needs a proactive approach to ensure that it can respond to this new legislation.

The national autism strategy represents a new and coordinated vision of supports and services for people in Canada. This is an opportunity for B.C. to be part of new funding, research and engagement to support autistic British Columbians. As I just mentioned, we recommend that the B.C. government commit $1 million and cross-ministerial engagement to develop a provincial autism framework.

[2:20 p.m.]

For our second recommendation, we recommend that the Ministry of Health eliminate the two- to three-year wait-list for publicly funded children’s autism assessments.

As of December of last year, the publicly listed wait time is 1½ years. However, when you call and speak with them over the phone, you’re told, or the parents are told over the phone, that it is a 2½ year wait-list. B.C. children are waiting two to three years for a public autism assessment. During this time, their brains and bodies are continuing to develop without the supports that they need.

We’ve been working together with Autism Canada to create a list of solutions to this growing wait-list. Here they are.

The first one is amending the 2003 standards and guide­lines for autism assessments. We recommend that the B.C. government creates a task force to work on this amendment, which should review ways to simplify and streamline assessments. I’ve provided more specific recommendations in the written feedback.

Secondly, early developmental screening for autism should be completed as a standard. This could be an added component to the 12-month well-baby check. Also, we’re hoping for the ability to triage children in the public system. Our hope is that all autism assessments are publicly funded and available within three months, as was also recommended by the Representative for Children and Youth.

Our third recommendation is similar to the second one. We’re recommending developing an adult autism assessment program. On a monthly basis, Autism B.C.’s blog article on autism assessments is viewed over 2,200 times, and we receive over 100 inquiries on adult assessments monthly.

There is an existential and practical need for autistic adults to receive a diagnosis, many of whom fell through the cracks and were not assessed and supported as children. With the only option being getting a private adult assessment, which costs $3,500, and the fact that there are few clinicians providing these assessments in B.C., many adults are struggling. They are lost, and some are in crisis. We recommend that the B.C. government allows for adult autism assessments to be funded through B.C.’s Medical Services Plan.

Many adults who receive a diagnosis later in life de­scribe having had an aha moment. Suddenly, their lives make sense, and they understand why they’ve struggled in specific ways. After getting a diagnosis, they’re able to advocate for accommodations at work and at university. They’ve found like-minded people, and they’ve started accessing resources and support. But most importantly, the diagnosis helps them to take better care of themselves and to stop trying to be someone that they are not.

The downstream costs associated with not supporting autistic adults include high unemployment and underemployment rates, as without a diagnosis, autistic adults are not entitled to employment accommodations they may need to earn or retain a job. All of this impacts income, poverty levels, mental health, health care costs and assisted living costs.

You can improve the well-being, health and dignity of thousands of autistic British Columbians by providing publicly funded adult autism assessments.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Julia.

B. Banman: Thank you very much for your presentation.

I think, if my memory serves me right, now it’s estimated that one in 40 — it’s one in 40, or it’s one in 60; I always get it mixed up — people are diagnosed with autism.

My real question is: do we have the people in place to be able to actually do this? It’s one thing…. I agree that it needs to be done. I think that prescreening could actually help with a lot of things, but do we actually have the professionals in place to make an accurate diagnosis? I would imagine you’d be wanting to include other neurodiverse individuals — neurodeficit, rather, individuals — with that as well.

J. Boyle: Right now, the statistic is it’s actually one in 29 children, which is 3 percent of the population for children ages six to 18. That’s the statistic that we use to generalize across the population. Actually, it’s gone up 50 percent since 2019.

[2:25 p.m.]

In 2019, it was 2 percent of the population, and now it is 3 percent.

That’s a great question about the human resources to staff the assessments. It’s a great question. It is a bottleneck, and that’s why we’re recommending an amendment to the guidelines, because there are ways to streamline and simplify the assessment process.

There has been recent research that shows that 90 per percent of pediatricians can provide a successful diagnosis in isolation, which means that they can provide a diagnosis on their own, whereas the standard now is that it takes three professionals to provide an autism diagnosis. So there’s research showing that there are ways to minimize the number of specialists or human resources involved in an autism diagnosis. And that’s one of the recommendations that we’re putting forward.

I agree that training, additional training…. You know, one of the other recommendations we talked about was not requiring the ADOS and the ADI-R to be used in every single assessment, because it’s a specialized training which limits the number of people that can provide those assessments. There has been recent research that shows that both of those assessments are not required to be able to provide a successful diagnosis, although they’re currently required.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Julia. Two questions.

First, on the provincial strategy framework, you mentioned that there are other provinces that have had this in place. What province would provide us with a good blueprint for our own? And two, how many adults, in your estimation, per year are diagnosed with autism?

J. Boyle: There aren’t any provincial or even national statistics on the number of adults with autism or who have a diagnosis of autism, and that’s because the assessments are not tracked. There’s no strategy in place to do so. Having that information would be really, really helpful, but we just kind of extrapolate from the childhood diagnostic rates to speak about adults in B.C. If you do extrapolate that data, it would show that about 60,000 adults in B.C. are autistic.

With regards to the national autism strategy and a provincial autism framework, I know that Nova Scotia has made some headway and received funding from their provincial government, although they’re still in the process of developing that provincial strategy. It does take time, but I am looking to them and the progress that they’ve made to be able to get a sense of how we can move forward in B.C. as well.

I have had some great conversations with the Ministry of Children and Family Development on this. They recently attended a national autism summit in Ottawa, where they spoke on behalf of a provincial strategy. However, the national or provincial autism strategy goes beyond children, and it needs the engagement of other ministries in order for it to be a full strategy.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. I have two questions.

The first one is around the notion of early screening, at the 12-month…. My understanding is that they cannot identify autism until a fair bit older. I know I was on the children and family committee that recommended early screening as soon as possible, and universal, so that you get over that stigma question. I’m curious about that.

I’m also curious about the national strategy framework. What exactly is it providing us to help us move forward?

J. Boyle: I’m not a subject-matter expert in terms of autism screenings, but as I understand, the ways that we are assessing autism, that we’re diagnosing autism, have improved drastically over the last five or ten years. I think that the tools are now able to pick up on signs that a child might be autistic at an earlier age, but I don’t have more technical information about that right now.

With regard to the national autism strategy, the Autism Alliance of Canada has created a blueprint. There has also been a report that came out in May of last year by the Public Health Agency of Canada. I’m happy to provide those reports. Both of those are research that goes into looking at what the national autism strategy should encompass.

Again, it’s still under development, as well, but it would span from issues related to assessments, as I’ve talked about today, all the way to employment or disability taxes and other topics as well.

[2:30 p.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Julia, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, and thank you very much for what you do with the community.

Our next presenter is Dr. Lindi Thibodeau from the B.C. Anesthesiologists Society.

Dr. Thibodeau, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or answers.

The floor is yours.

B.C. ANESTHESIOLOGISTS SOCIETY

L. Thibodeau: Thank you so much, and thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to this committee.

I’m Dr. Lindi Thibodeau. I’m an anaesthesiologist, and I work in Comox, B.C. I’m here on behalf of the B.C. Anesthesiologists Society as an advisory board member and a project lead and advocate for prehabilitation.

I wanted to talk to you today about prehabilitation and why it should be made a priority for the B.C. government. I’m going to take a step back and explain what prehab, or prehabilitation, is.

Most people are familiar with the term “rehab.” That’s something that happens after we have a trauma, like a broken leg or a surgery, and we work to get better, stronger, healthier. Prehabilitation is something that you do before surgery, with the understanding that if you are stronger and healthier, you’re going to be better before and then, therefore, better afterwards.

There has been emerging literature over the last ten or 15 years which has shown, consistently, a 50 percent de­crease in complications after surgery. Complications after surgery are things like wound infections, joint infections, heart attacks, heart failure, blood transfusions — all things that have major implications for our patients as well as our health care system.

What prehab does is…. There’s nothing new and sexy about it. It’s all good preventative medicine. But what we harness is patients’ motivation prior to surgery. We’re harnessing their energy to use their wait-list time wisely and improve their physical, mental and nutritional well-being with exercise recommendations, physiotherapy, diabetes, smoking cessation, improved nutrition. There are about 13 clinical components that we work with.

If we can prehab patients before surgery, we have a mas­sive cost savings. In the surgical patient optimization collaborative, which was a Doctors of B.C.–funded project over a couple of years, it showed, in a North Island hospital, that we saved about $1,500 to $4,000 per surgery, net. If we optimized 75 percent of patients in B.C., that would be a savings of $21 million per year. If we optimized and prehabilitated 100 percent, that would be upwards of $28 million per year.

With our three recommendations, we can accomplish this goal within 12 to 24 months. There are not any big health system changes that we have to make, but our biggest barrier to achieving this goal of actually doing this for patients is time and inequity in pre-operative or pre-surgical resources. I’m going to get to our three recommendations.

Recommendation one. Let’s make prehabilitation a priority within the B.C. Ministry of Health. To me, this is a total no-brainer. It saves patient complications, less hospital length of stay, less visits to the ER and primary care post-op, saves millions of dollars.

If we’re working in a system where we want to improve patient access and timeliness for surgery, and we also have a very people-poor system — we don’t have nurses and doctors, and we’re struggling — we want to use this time wisely on our wait-lists. We really need to prioritize initiatives like this that actually prevent complications before they happen and take weight off our health care system.

Recommendation two. Please, can we collaborate with the provincial alignment committee? We’re working on creating provincial standards for pre-surgical care.

It’s pretty simple. Before surgery, patients need four things. They need a detailed screening. They need customized investigations, like blood work. They need a plan for managing their medications before surgery, things like blood thinners and insulin management. That can be life-threatening if it’s done wrong. We need a customized plan for prehabilitation. If our patient is inactive, and they smoke, we need to actually activate them to do physiotherapy and smoking cessation. If they’re anemic, we need to treat them with iron infusions.

Currently this is being done totally differently. If you present for surgery in Comox versus Victoria, Kitimat versus Vancouver General, you are not going to receive the same preoperative care. This is because there are different amounts of funding. There is health inequity, and we are working on creating a provincial alignment strategy. We already have a committee together with Doctors of B.C. funding in place and a plan to create provincial standard recommendations by January 2024.

[2:35 p.m.]

So please collaborate with us to be a part of the project and promote the results.

The third recommendation, I think, is the most exciting, and a huge opportunity for the B.C. government. We can use a digital tool to help provide people with different levels of experience and places with less pre-operative funding or less nurses available to give their patients the best care possible.

We can have our patients fill out an online screener with it being informed by that provincial committee, and we can then cross-reference and have it spit out a guideline-based plan for investigations, medication management, prehabilitation. These can be customized and community-specific, but we can use the provincial guidelines created. This can decrease nurses’ time, reduce nursing resources in the pre-surgical clinic, create health equity across the province and decrease unnecessary testing, as well, by 30 to 40 percent.

This tool exists elsewhere. It’s in a minimally viable pilot form in B.C., and we’re struggling. We need it prioritized to create this tool with the provincial content and really make our province a leader in pre-surgical care. We need funds, and we need operational expertise.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Dr. Thibodeau.

S. Chant: Thanks for your presentation.

I am a nurse. I note a lot of the work, I think, could possibly be done at the prehab level with community health providers, and so on, not necessarily needing full-level clin­ical staff. Is that something that has sort of crossed the radar and is part of the thinking?

L. Thibodeau: Absolutely. I think that’s a great question. Each community is going to be slightly different. Different communities have different levels of primary care access for patients, and in some communities, patients are travelling a long distance. So what this tool would perhaps do is allow the primary care provider, a nurse practitioner or a family doctor who does most of the prehab care, say, in one place…. They could access the same resources as an anesthesiologist at Vancouver General Hospital.

Regardless of where you’re doing this work, it’s a partnership. It has to be done in partnership with our primary care providers because in a pre-surgical clinic, although we have a lot of resources and opportunity to actually activate patients to make long-term preventative health changes, we’re not a longitudinal care provider. So a lot of these things do need to bounce back and work together with our primary care system.

Just as a plug, in the Comox Valley, we’ve been actually doing this. We don’t have a fully functional digital tool, but we have a fully functional…. We use guideline-based care for each of those four areas. We have an integrated process with our primary care providers, and a stepwise plan for each component, 13 components of prehabilitation. That’s where this idea came from.

We’re doing such great work here, and there are such barriers with the ability to make these sorts of changes in other places, because pre-surgical clinics run differently. They have different levels of funding and different amounts of nurses being able to actually take on this problem.

Like I said, there’s a true health inequity here, so I’m hoping that a digital tool, taking some of that work off of the nurses and off of an overly burdened primary care sector, can help people.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you. I’m starting to develop Comox Valley envy.

A. Walker: Thank you, Lindi. Your energy is infectious. I appreciate this.

I’m wondering if there are other jurisdictions where…. This whole prehabilitation thing is new to me, and I think it’s fascinating. I’m wondering if there are other jurisdictions where this is being done. Also, how do you incentivize patients to actually follow through and do the things that you’re hoping they’ll do pre-surgery?

L. Thibodeau: That’s a really great question, so twofold. First of all, the NHS, through Portsmouth Hospitals…. Dr. Malcolm West is a complex colorectal surgeon. They have a really great prehabilitation tool that actually incorporates a lot of videos and things and works primarily only in the study population. It’s not integrated within their health care system.

There are definitely other areas in the province that do this piecemeal. After participating in the SPOC collaborative, which is the surgical patient optimization collaborative, which was the Doctors of B.C.–funded, I just saw this is such a major opportunity. Everyone runs into the barrier of lack of standardization, inequity of resources and a lack of time. I saw the work by Malcolm West in other places that they’re actually doing this, and I thought: “This is totally possible.” So we started to do it in Comox, and it’s been great.

[2:40 p.m.]

Then I was asked within Island Health to say: “Hey, can we actually change the way presurgical clinics work across the Island? We like what’s going on in Comox.” I just had so many barriers.

I really want to help spread this in a way that helps our really heavy, people-poor health care system. I really think this is one way to do it.

I forget the other question, sorry.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Me too. I think it was something to do with Comox.

We have about 40 seconds left to go.

B. Banman: You know, I thought this was going to be a bit of a sleepy presentation, but you’ve jolted me awake, and I love it.

I want to ask a question on…. If we break even on this, I think it’s money well spent. The outcomes will be better, and that’s really what’s important. But you mentioned physio and a bunch of other stuff. In that $1,500 that you saved, did that include the use of all the other extra steps we’re going to do, like physio and everything? Does that include that as well?

L. Thibodeau: That study was a small study out of Campbell River, and it did. It did. We didn’t refer everyone to physio, only patients who required it. Otherwise, they were exercise prescriptions. Clinical frailty scales and things like that were used to determine who would benefit from physiotherapy. But yes.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Dr. Thibodeau, I will say that I echo the same thing. You have actually jolted us with the smile, the energy that has come into the room, despite the number of times the word “Comox” has been used.

L. Thibodeau: Comox is the best. Sorry.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, this had one more. It’s almost like a private member’s bill.

Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. It’s done us all a lot of good.

On that note, we will recess for five minutes.

The committee recessed from 2:41 p.m. to 2:49 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. The next presenter up is Usman Mushtaq from the B.C. Health Coalition.

You have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

[2:50 p.m.]

B.C. HEALTH COALITION

U. Mushtaq: Thank you for the opportunity to present today.

I would like to start by acknowledging that I’m speaking from the unceded and stolen territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.

The B.C. Health Coalition is a democratic and diverse coalition of organizations and individuals from all across B.C. who have come together to be the voice of evidence-based public health care in B.C. and to champion its protection, comprehensiveness and equity. As well, I would like to share our support for coalition members who have or will be presenting, including the HSA, HEU, the B.C. Association of Community Health Centres, B.C. Crisis Line Network, the Rural Health Network and COSCO B.C.

Now, we know public health care is not only equitable; it also offers better quality, more efficient and cost-effective care. That is why we’re calling for all new capital investments into long-term-care infrastructure to be redirected into publicly operated facilities. You can read more about it in our written submission. For today, I’d like to focus on two other aspects of our submission: making home support for seniors more accessible and enforcing B.C.’s rules on extra billing.

Home support services allow seniors to age in home by providing them personal assistance with activities of daily living, such as bathing, grooming and food prep. Yet access to publicly funded home support has failed to keep up with the needs of seniors in B.C., despite provincial and national polls showing that seniors overwhelmingly want to age at home.

B.C. is one of the last provinces that still limits access to home support by charging a co-payment fee to seniors. The office of the B.C.’s seniors advocate has found that a senior with an annual income of $29,000 must pay over 30 percent of their annual income for just one hour daily visit of home support. These fees are not affordable for most B.C. seniors when other costs such as food, shelter and medication are factored in.

Eliminating co-payments to access home support also makes sound economic sense. According to a report by the seniors advocate, subsidizing a long-term-care bed costs taxpayers about $59,000 per year, while two hours of daily home support costs less than half, saving the B.C. taxpayer an average of over $31,000 per year. It just makes sense. Increasing access to home support through the elimination of the co-payment is good for seniors and good for B.C. taxpayers.

Now is the time to focus efforts on public health care system improvements as well, but we can’t do that if for-profit health care companies are taking money away from B.C. taxpayers through unlawful extra billing. Extra billing happens when patients are either charged directly by their health care provider for services already covered by MSP or charged in addition to the amounts prescribed by MSP. This practice contravenes the principles of the Canada Health Act as well as the B.C. Medicare Protection Act.

Extra billing impacts British Columbians in two ways.

First, it allows people who have the means to pay out of pocket for medically necessary procedures to jump the queue. This leaves the public system that most of us rely on with longer wait times, as resources are diverted into the for-profit sector. Evidence from around the world and other provinces shows that relying on for-profit companies to deliver health care is more expensive to the public and leads to worse outcomes.

Secondly, extra billing impacts British Columbia’s taxpayers. B.C., like other provinces, relies on federal funding for our provincial health care system through the Canada health transfer. The federal government withholds Canada health transfer funding on a dollar-for-dollar basis based on the amount of extra billing happening in our province.

To give you an idea, between 2018 and 2021, the federal government withheld $62 million. This is money owed to B.C. residents to fund a robust public health system that was taken away due to the unlawful actions of for-profit health care companies.

That is why our recommendation is for next year’s provincial budget to fund an increase of the government’s monitoring, audit and enforcement capacity of B.C.’s rules on extra billing. The Medical Services Commission needs support in taking on a more proactive approach to dealing with extra billing that does not put the burden on patients.

Public health care has been our best defence against COVID-19 and congruent health emergencies. We call upon this government to strengthen and fortify it so we can keep our communities safe for decades to come.

Thank you to this committee for giving me the time to speak today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation.

[2:55 p.m.]

S. Chant: Thank you very much for your presentation.

Can you tell me how the federal government calculates how much extra billing was done in B.C., please?

U. Mushtaq: This information is available in the Canada Health Act annual report, which gets published every year. The amounts are calculated through different means. In B.C., it was calculated through self-reporting by the B.C. provincial government as well as audits by the federal government themselves based on how much extra billing hap­pened in previous years. It’s a variety of calculations of both the province’s self-reporting as well as the federal government doing their own monitoring and audits.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions and/or comments?

B. Stewart: Usman, I just wanted to ask…. You mentioned at the very start about taking money that is being utilized, and it sounded like it was being used for private health care. Were you talking about partnerships where…? I know that in some of the facilities, there are publicly funded beds in a facility that’s privately operated. Is that what you’re suggesting? That they stop that and only fund where it’s a 100 percent public health care facility?

U. Mushtaq: Yeah, that is what is in our written submission — that we’d like public funds to go to publicly operated long-term-care facilities. We know there’s transparency around how funds are being used in publicly operated long-term-care facilities.

Right now long-term-care workers in B.C. receive wage top-ups. This was started during the pandemic as a re­sponse. It’s been great for workers and for the conditions of care for long-term-care facilities for these workers to have the compensation they need for the important work they do.

Many of them work in for-profit facilities where it’s not clear that the public funds we are giving for wage top-ups to these workers are…. How are they being used? Are they being used to top up workers’ wages, or are they being redirected into profits for investors? Again, there isn’t…. When for-profits get involved, there’s a lack of transparency around how public funds are used.

B. Stewart: Just to be clear, though, you asked about increasing, putting more resources into, the audit. If we stop doing one, then why would you…? I mean, you’re auditing, essentially, the public system. I’m not clear. I take it that the mistakes are being made both in private and public for that $61 million that the feds held back.

U. Mushtaq: Yeah, mistakes are being made in both systems. But there’s an incentive for the for-profit health care providers to extra-bill, because they’re wanting to provide services on top of what the public health care system can provide.

We have seen that recently with the Telus Health decision where the Ministry of Health filed an injunction against Telus Health. They have a secondary injunction against Harrison Healthcare for the same reasons, which is that these two health care companies were extra-billing patients in B.C. on top of what the rules are around what they should be billing patients.

S. Chant: Looking at the home support recommendation, what I’m understanding from you is to just get rid of the per-diem system, not have people pay a per diem. What do you do with the folks in our communities that are not at a low income?

I live and work in North Vancouver in the community health system, and we have a lot of people that are very high-income who will say a lot about the per-diem system. However, they also are contributing to some of the costs towards it. How much money would we lose out of the system if we stopped collecting the per diem or the daily cost from home support?

U. Mushtaq: To give you an idea, B.C.’s rate of newly admitted long-term-care residents with low care needs — these are people who could potentially stay at home if they have the support — is twice as high as Alberta and Ontario. Neither of these provinces charge for home support, so they don’t have the per-diem rates.

[3:00 p.m.]

Here in B.C., we actually have a rate 34 percent higher than the national average of admitting people into long-term care. This is all information that the B.C. seniors advocate office has confirmed and has done the research around.

What we are saying is that long-term-care beds cost more. So if we can take that 34 percent that potentially doesn’t need to go into long-term care, yes, we are losing out on the per-diem rate, but then that is offset by the increased number of people who won’t have to go to long-term-care beds, which cost the public more per bed than providing that home support.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Usman, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

U. Mushtaq: Thank you to this committee.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Geraldine Vance, B.C. Pharmacy Association.

Geraldine, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

B.C. PHARMACY ASSOCIATION

G. Vance: Thank you very much.

I want to first start by acknowledging that I’m speaking from the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

On behalf of B.C.’s community pharmacies, I would like to thank you very much for the opportunity to address you today. The B.C. Pharmacy Association represents more than 4,100 pharmacists working in more than 1,400 pharmacies in communities big and small across the province. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, community pharmacists across the province have worked hard to keep their patients safe, and a key part of that work has been their role in the immunization campaigns.

Last year pharmacists administered more than 2.5 million COVID vaccinations and more than 1.2 million influenza vaccinations during this past fall flu season. Community pharmacists also became a convenient location for British Columbians needing rapid antigen tests. Last year again 30.1 million COVID tests were sent to the 1,400 pharmacies in B.C.

The newly created provincial centralized immunization booking system allowed B.C. to immunize record numbers of people for both COVID-19 and in the fall flu influenza campaign. With the uptake of this new system and pharmacists’ increasing role in immunization, they are well positioned to support more public vaccination campaigns.

The province’s cancer strategy includes eliminating cervical cancer by 2033. As part of this, the government plans to increase the uptake of HPV vaccines in the next three years to hit a target of 90 percent vaccination rates with adolescents. B.C. pharmacists can help meet this goal by vaccinating those adolescents who have missed their HPV vaccines.

I would like now to talk about the role pharmacists are playing in helping fill the gaps in primary care. As is well known, more than one million British Columbians are without a family doctor. Last fall pharmacists were given the ability to administer more medications through injection, intranasally, and to adapt and renew a broader range of medications. This has really helped patients without a regular primary care prescriber get access to the medications they need when they need them.

Since changes went into place last October, the number of prescriptions renewed or adapted by a B.C. pharmacist increased by 120 percent compared to the year before. And as you know, I expect, as of June 1, pharmacists are now able to prescribe for 21 minor ailments and contraception. The latest numbers look like about 1,000 assessments are being done a day.

We believe that B.C. can continue to build on the successes of B.C. pharmacists. Key to this is allowing B.C. pharmacists to order lab tests. Pharmacists need access to clinical information to ensure that patients get renewals of their chronic medications, which they can now renew for up to two years.

Another area where pharmacists can continue to help fill the gaps is allowing for point-of-care testing in pharmacies. Point-of-care tests for strep infections have been conducted in pharmacies in other provinces, and the research shows this is a cost-effective and efficient alternative to visiting a lab and certainly can reduce doctors office visits. Pharmacists can help patients get immediate results and free up valuable space in other urgent care centres.

[3:05 p.m.]

I’d like now to turn to our last point of our presentation, another crisis that pharmacists can help with, which is B.C.’s overdose crisis. Our organization developed and launched a comprehensive training program for pharmacists who are serving patients with opioid use disorder. We have trained more than 5,100 pharmacists and technicians in British Columbia. As a result, pharmacists can take on a greater role in the care of patients with opioid use disorder.

The changes made last October that allow for pharmacists to adapt and renew more medications include the ability for pharmacists to renew a prescription for opioid agonist therapy, often called OAT. This is permitted under the section 56 injunction of the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. This means that patients can continue to be provided with the same treatment but for a limited time, until they can see a prescriber.

There are still hurdles in the legislation that do not allow for adaptations — changing a dose, correcting an error on the patient’s old prescription. Permanent changes need to be made to the legislation to fully use pharmacists in the response to the overdose crisis.

We know that harm reduction is another piece of combatting the crisis. One area of this is prescribed safer supply as alternatives to the toxic street drug supply for individuals who are at higher risk for overdose.

Another harm reduction strategy used in B.C. is providing drug testing kits that check the content of illicit street drugs. These may not be available widely across the prov­ince. Pharmacists can easily be a point of access for British Columbians to anonymously pick up the drug testing strips. As the rapid antigen tests showed, people are certainly willing to go to the pharmacy for that kind of test.

In conclusion, B.C.’s community pharmacists continue to fill gaps in health care, both in public health and pri­mary care. As the government looks to continue to provide better access to care, pharmacists are able to provide more services to fill important health care needs for British Columbia.

Again, I thank you for the opportunity to present to you, and I welcome your questions today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Geraldine, thank you for your presentation today.

S. Chant: Thanks very much for your presentation, and thank you, to you and pharmacists, for the work that you do and the more work that you’re doing.

I look at your written presentation, and I find that your recommendations do not voice what you are telling us, what you’re saying to us. I’m wondering if you would possibly add to your written presentation, maybe by Friday, to tell us the things, because what you’re saying makes much more sense than what I see in your written presentation. Sorry about that.

G. Vance: I’m always happy to clarify and provide my written remarks.

S. Chant: Thank you for that.

The point-of-care testing and the allowing pharmacists to order lab tests…. Ordering the lab tests — is that in the training, or would pharmacists need additional training to order lab tests?

G. Vance: Certainly the interpretation of lab tests is within the scope of practice, the things that pharmacists are taught and know how to do. So they know how to read those tests. The specifics around the mechanics would certainly involve a training program.

I think it’s important to understand why ordering these tests is so important. If you’re a patient that has hypertension and may not have a physician on an ongoing basis, allowing the pharmacist to track that information is really critical to them, and you, as the patient, feeling confident you can get a long-term renewal on those prescriptions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Geraldine, about 13 days ago, on June 1, when the changes came forward, we had a presenter that talked about the fear of the extra overtime for pharmacists, the extra work for the pharmacist, the extra hours for the pharmacist. Then, shortly after that, we heard from a pharmacist that welcomed all the changes. So with your organization, where are we?

G. Vance: Okay. I can tell you, certainly anecdotally, that from the pharmacists we’ve talked to, there’s an overwhelming desire to be doing this and a real thrill.

I’ll give you a two-second…. I was in my pharmacy the other day, and I said: “Have you done any?” And the long-standing pharmacist said: “I cannot tell you how important this is to our patients but how important it is to me as a pharmacist, because I’m using this base of skills that I’ve had for a very long time, and it’s so good to be doing that. It’s good for the profession.”

[3:10 p.m.]

We’re certainly not hearing from pharmacists — concerns about that or a lack of willingness to do this. I can tell you that on day one, we literally had patients lining up, waiting for the pharmacies to open. There’s a need in the community, and pharmacists are very enthusiastic, in our experience.

B. Stewart: I did get a similar result when I asked a phar­macist the other day, and it’s starting to come. But today I had a constituent call, and they had been told that at the pharmacy they were at, which happened to be a large corporate group, they weren’t doing that. I don’t really know whether that is a problem. I just mention that and flag it, because I think getting the information out there and making certain they’re on board is important.

G. Vance: Yes, definitely. Certainly, it’s going to be a ramp-up. We had 463 pharmacists delivering services on day one, and that number is steadily climbing. We would fully expect full participation. It will take a bit of time — not a long time, but a bit of time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions or comments?

S. Chant: In response to my colleague’s query, is that because at some of the larger pharmacies, their direction comes from outside of British Columbia?

G. Vance: I would say that would not be the reason, remembering B.C. is the last jurisdiction to add minor-ailment prescribing for pharmacists. This is done across the country. In that regard, operationally, there would certainly be no hurdles at all to implementing minor-ailment prescribing in B.C.

S. Chant: Interesting. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Geraldine, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, and to your organization. They have stepped up to the plate, immensely — whether it was through COVID-19 or even just through the various vaccinations that are out there and what comes in the future.

Thank you for what you do and for what your members do on behalf.

Our next presenter is Charles Aruliah, Canadian Cancer Society.

Charles, you have five minutes to make a presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY

C. Aruliah: Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you.

Over the past year, we have continued to hear of the many challenges British Columbians living with cancer have faced as they’ve navigated their cancer journeys. We hear of people with cancer being diagnosed far later than they should. We also hear of delays for patients in seeing specialists and receiving treatment. In some cases, these delays have resulted in tragic consequences, with people facing incurable cancers soon after diagnosis.

There’s little doubt that B.C. is in the midst of a cancer care crisis. Currently there are now 1.5 million Canadians living with and beyond cancer, an increase of over half a million from just a decade ago. As B.C.’s population ages, this number and the province’s cancer prevalence will only increase and will lead to even further stress on a burgeoning cancer care system.

Earlier this year, B.C. launched an ambitious ten-year cancer action plan, aimed at tackling some of these challenges that we are seeing. However, there are some important gaps, as well as opportunities not yet identified, in the plan’s scope that would help position B.C. to better prepare for the future of cancer care.

An important piece in reducing future cancer prevalence is through investing in cancer prevention. We know that tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in both B.C. and Canada and contributes to about 30 percent of all cancer deaths. Almost 5,800 British Columbians continue to die each year due to tobacco use. While B.C. has a 10 percent prevalence rate for tobacco use, we still lag behind the federal government’s goal of less than 5 percent tobacco use by the year 2035.

As one proposed measure, CCS is asking that the full cost of the B.C. government’s tobacco control strategy be recovered through an annual cost recovery fee on tobacco manufacturers operating or selling in B.C. The tobacco industry should be required to reimburse the B.C. government for the costs of responding to the tobacco epidemic, which they are primarily responsible for creating. If implemented today, a tobacco cost recovery fee would generate approximately $25 million in annual revenue for the B.C. government, based on the current investment in the provincial tobacco control strategy.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has had a to­bacco strategy fee in place since 2009. The Canadian federal government has committed to implementing a $66 million tobacco cost recovery fee to recoup the cost of the federal government’s tobacco strategy. B.C. should follow suit.

Similarly, over the past few years, B.C. has witnessed a dramatic increase in youth vaping, which has led to a new generation of youth becoming addicted to nicotine. In B.C., rates of youth vaping among high school students in grades 10 to 12 have more than tripled, in the past few years — from where it was in 2014, at 11 percent, to 39 percent in 2018-2019.

[3:15 p.m.]

We know that the high cost of vaping products is an especially potent strategy in reducing youth vaping. B.C. introduced a 13 percent provincial sales tax on vapour products in 2020. However, this is among the lower end when compared to other provinces.

To further reduce e-cigarette use among youth, the prov­ince should increase the sales tax percentage for e-cigarettes beyond the effective current rate of 13 percent and/or participate in the federal government’s e-cigarette tax framework, which taxes based on the amount of liquid in a product and applies at the importer-and-manufacturer level. If B.C. were to participate in the federal framework, the province would receive 50 percent of the revenue generated.

Finally, there continue to remain gaps in the way B.C. delivers palliative care in the province. Canadians with cancer are three times more likely to receive palliative care than those with other conditions. Yet they struggle to continue to access that care. One place where this gap is evident, in particular, is in the delivery of grief and bereavement supports. While the province has made mental health supports a priority as it relates to toxic drug use, there is no recognition of unresolved or complicated grief as a mental health issue in the province.

As a result, B.C. does not fully publicly fund grief and bereavement organizations. The financial burden for providing grief support services falls to charities, hospices and other not-for-profit organizations. This burden is also increasing. In 2022, CCS received 216 bereavement-related inquiries to our cancer information help line, a fourfold increase from the previous year. Since grief and bereavement services are provided by an array of organizations, they also are often fragmented, which, in turn, can lead to inefficiencies, duplications of effort and increased inequity of access.

CCS is asking that the province make grief and bereavement a mental health priority. Doing so can pave the way for the systemic funding of grief and bereavement supports and help consolidate the delivery of palliative care across the province. Investing in these actions will support some of the goals outlined in B.C.’s cancer action plan, addressing some of the important gaps which have been overlooked, and can better position B.C. to be prepared for the current needs of British Columbians living with cancer as well as the future of cancer care.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Charles, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Charles, and thanks to the B.C. Cancer Society for all you do. I’m 100 percent supportive of your society.

On recommendation 1, maybe you can just respond to the taxation on tobacco products and your view, I guess, on the suggestion that an increase to taxation on tobacco products would only enhance the black-market sale of tobacco. Maybe you can just respond to that.

C. Aruliah: In terms of a cost recovery fee…. We see it as less of a tax and more of a regulatory fee that would be under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health.

In regard to what we’ve been hearing about contraband, it really is less of an issue with taxation and more of an issue with enforcement. Making sure that the province is well equipped to conduct enforcement measures can help address issues related to contraband.

One argument that we keep hearing from the industry is that contraband is becoming more and more of an issue. That being said, the industry has increased prices at a far greater rate than the province has taxed cigarettes at. If the industry were concerned about contraband, they wouldn’t be increasing their prices so much that it would, potentially, increase contraband. Really, it is an enforcement issue more than a taxation issue.

S. Chant: Thanks very much for your presentation.

Also, thank you for the work that you do.

Talking about the access to long-term bereavement support…. Where would you find the clinicians, please? To my mind, within the home care environment, the home care nurses do some extended bereavement support for clients they’ve worked with for a long time. It is very difficult to carve out the time, and it often moves to the bottom of the priority pile, because of other things that are more immediate and acute. So I worry.

I hear you, but I’m concerned about the clinical backup for that request.

C. Aruliah: Yeah, there are two pieces to that. There’s the capacity of clinicians and just their ability to respond to those grief and bereavement needs and services. We’ve seen the province beginning to invest in health human resources. That can help address some of that capacity, so that they’re more able to adequately respond to some of those deeper needs of clients.

[3:20 p.m.]

When it comes to the clinician side of things as well, because there’s no systemic way that the province ap­proaches grief and bereavement, the way that people often refer to services depends on where they are within the province, and it depends on regional authorities. In some cases, it may be up to the individual clinician when they refer a person to a grief and bereavement service. In others, they may be referred to grief and bereavement, depending on how long they have been experiencing grief.

Because of that, there are issues with tracking exactly how effective grief and bereavement interventions are, because there’s no consistent way that it’s being done across the province. So we want to make sure that there’s really a systematic way that the province is looking at grief and bereavement support. We see that making it a mental health priority is the first step in doing that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Charles, you made a comment in your presentation that British Columbia was taxing vaping at 13 percent and that that was on the low end of the scale across the country. What would be the high end of the scale?

C. Aruliah: A lot of jurisdictions have come out with vaping taxes over the last few years. There are different approaches.

B.C. currently has a sales tax in play of about 13 percent. The other two jurisdictions that have a similar sales tax are Saskatchewan, which is effectively around 14 percent, and Newfoundland, which is around 20 percent. Now, the federal government has implemented a separate framework with, essentially, a tax on the amount of liquid, which is about $1 per two millilitres of the first ten millilitres in a liquid. Then for products that have ten millilitres or more, it’s $5 for the first ten millilitres and $1 for each after.

It’s really hard to compare apples to apples in that case, but based on preliminary calculations, if B.C. were to participate in the federal framework instead of taking a sales tax approach, it would likely result in more revenue and more taxation on industry as a result by participating in that framework. And they would get 50 percent of that revenue generated.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for that, Charles, and thank you again for your presentation this afternoon and for what your organization does for everyone in the country.

Our next presenter is Joan King, Diabetes Canada.

Joan, before we start, I just want, for the record, to say that you are the 300th presenter that we have heard since these hearings have gone through.

Interjection.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Ding, ding, ding. Yes, exactly.

Joan, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Lucky No. 300, you have the floor.

[3:25 p.m.]

DIABETES CANADA

J. King: Good afternoon. My name is Joan King. I’m the director of government affairs and advocacy with Diabetes Canada.

I would like to acknowledge that I am presenting today from Treaty 6 territory.

From coast to coast, to coast, I acknowledge the ancestral and unceded territory of the Inuit, Métis and First Nations people that call this land home.

Diabetes Canada is a [audio interrupted].

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Our next presenter is Inge Schamborzki, Health and Home Care Society of British Columbia.

Well, we’ve had a change of the program here. If you’re looking to be the fabulous 300th person that has been…. You are now officially the 300th presenter that we will have heard since we’ve been here.

Inge, you have five minutes for your presentation, and there are five minutes for questions and/or comments.

You have the floor.

HEALTH AND HOME CARE SOCIETY OF B.C.

I. Schamborzki: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak with you about the need for more financial resources for respite services to support caregivers.

The B.C. government has been funding two complementary programs to help support seniors to remain living at home for as long as possible. Better at Home provides non-medical assistance, such as grocery shopping and transportation to appointments. Home is Best provides millions of dollars annually to provide home support, including assistance with bathing, medication and other personal care needs for individuals who can remain home with minimal assistance.

Lacking, however, is support for the caregiver. While these programs are helpful in providing a few hours of home care, they do not provide the necessary break required for the caregiver to recharge.

At some point in our lives, many of us are highly likely to undertake the role of caregiver, living with a responsibility in our homes of looking after a spouse or parent with memory loss, dementia or other complex health concerns. Most caregivers wish for their loved ones to remain living at home for as long as possible. However, anyone who has done so knows all too well that caring for a loved one over an extended period without adequate support can be incredibly stressful.

Caregivers require periodic breaks to remain healthy themselves. Extensive research has demonstrated that pro­viding long-term care for family or friends living at home who suffer from mental and, often, additional disabilities can have an adverse effect on the emotional and physical health and well-being of the caregiver, including symptoms of anxiety, depression, insomnia and social isolation.

The Health and Home Care Society of B.C., also known as Care B.C., is the former Victorian Order of Nurses, British Columbia branch. We began operating an integrated family respite centre in Vancouver in 2002. The Vancouver Health Authority committed to providing 80 percent of the annual operating costs and contributed $700,000 at the time towards the capital costs. With 12 overnight beds and 20 adult day program spaces, approximately 350 families are supported annually.

This model provides a safe, home-like environment in which seniors with dementia and other chronic illnesses are cared for by experienced, professional nursing and support staff. The guests benefit from recreational and therapeutic programs, as well as the opportunity to socialize with other guests, staff and volunteers. This service not only benefits the guest but provides their caregiver with the essential, critical break or respite they need away from their 24-7 responsibility, whether it’s for a couple of days, a week or up to one month per year.

In addition to supporting caregivers to remain healthy, respite allows families to live together longer. It provides caregivers with the experience of having others care for their loved one, which enables caregivers then to better plan for both their futures, reduces unnecessary emergency visits and hospitalizations and decreases premature admissions to residential care by up to 15 percent.

[3:30 p.m.]

We know the population is aging; 25 percent of Canadians aged 45 and older are caregivers. One third of these caregivers are seniors caring for a spouse or partner, and almost 50 percent of these caregivers are over the age of 75.

As the population ages, so does the prevalence of dem­entia. Dementia more than doubles every five years for Canadians 65 years and older, from less than 1 percent for those aged 65 to 69 to almost 25 percent for those who are 85 years and older.

To meet the ever-increasing needs of caregivers for respite, Care B.C. has committed to developing a second respite centre on the North Shore. This investment in building and operating a respite centre will provide significant benefits to the community, not only for the families seeking respite but in terms of the cost avoidance for the B.C. government. The annual cost of operating an integrated day and overnight respite program is significantly less than the cost of providing care for these individuals if they were hospitalized or placed in residential care homes.

A greater investment in respite care is a beneficial in­vestment in the emotional health and well-being of seniors, their caregivers and their families. Providing more respite services and enabling seniors to remain living at home longer is also one of the better options for the fiscal sustainability of the health care system.

In closing, I would like to provide a few testimonials from caregivers.

“When my mother is there, I actually sleep through the night.”

“I was falling apart. I would be unable to care full-time. These four days gave me time to recoup.”

“This facility is a life-saver. We need more beds. I was absolutely exhausted, and the family respite centre was so appreciated.”

“The knowledge that he was in a safe place and that his needs were being met in a respectful, caring way provided me with peace of mind regarding his well-being during the time of my surgery and recovery.”

Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Inge, thank you very much for your presentation.

S. Chant: Thank you, Inge. It’s Susie.

How much money are you asking for?

I. Schamborzki: I’m not specifically asking for money. I understood this was a provincial committee that was looking at financial planning for 2024.

S. Chant: Right.

I. Schamborzki: Interestingly, if you’re asking specifically, the second respite centre we’re building is currently being fundraised by our foundation. We have raised $7 million of the $11 million required to build it. We are currently continuing with our fundraising campaign and hope to raise those moneys in the next two years while the respite program is being built.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Are there any other questions and/or comments?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation.

I was trying to google something. I remember hearing a statistic about those that provide care for people with dementia, Alzheimer’s. I can’t remember the exact figure. It was that 20 percent, or maybe it was more than that, pass away before….

B. Banman: It’s 50.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Is it more than that? Fifty percent pass away before the ones that they care for pass away, largely due to the anxiety, stress, pressure, financial, all that stuff.

Can you maybe direct me to what that actual statistic is?

I. Schamborzki: Unfortunately I cannot, specifically. I know the Alzheimer Society would have that statistic.

You’re absolutely right. A lot of caregivers do get sick. Some of them get ill. Some of them require hospitalization, leaving their caregiver in a situation where they have no alternative but to go to an emergency room and end up in an acute bed in hospital while they’re waiting for a placement.

Yes, there is no doubt. It’s not only the emotional health of the caregiver that’s affected but also often the physical well-being. Many of these people are seniors themselves.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments and/or questions?

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. I know how important respite is for caregivers. I’ve seen it in my own family and in constituents.

My question is around day respite. If a family member just wants to have some freedom, maybe once a week or on occasion…. They want a day but don’t want the challenge of moving their loved one into respite for one night or even two or three nights.

Is that something that you have contemplated?

[3:35 p.m.]

I. Schamborzki: Yes, we do provide day programs. There are a significant number of adult day programs around the province. There is a greater need for them, but they definitely do exist.

In Vancouver itself, there are 12 day programs. There are no integrated overnight respite programs. That is what people often complain about — not having more than one or two days a week.

Currently unfortunately, many of us operating day programs have more availability that is not being used. Families, post-COVID, are still very concerned about bringing their loved one, most often a senior with chronic health problems, to a respite centre. The concern is that they might get sick again or get sick for the first time and die. It’s often through our adult day program that our guests, our clients, come to learn about our overnight and begin to use it.

I have to emphasize that many caregivers are very, very stoic and feel very guilty even at the thought of placing a family member. A day program is often the first step, where it’s not only using that facility to get some time for themselves but also to contemplate the idea of someone coming in overnight.

Even when our guests do come in overnight…. We do an assessment before they come in. They visit the centre; they get a tour. Probably only one in three end up coming for an overnight stay. They are so afraid to leave their home. They have been so socially isolated. Their caregiver, as I say, often has a lot of doubt and questions about doing this, particularly if the person they’re caring for expresses concerns.

Thank you for that question.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Inge, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. Thank you for what you and your group do for the community out there.

Our next presenter should be familiar to most of us. It’s Joan King, from Diabetes Canada.

Joan, my fingers are crossed.

DIABETES CANADA

(continued)

J. King: Thank you. I’m still having problems with my audio. You’re slipping in and out. Perhaps I can present. Then I may have to adjust the speaker setting again when you present questions to me, if that’s okay.

Good afternoon. My name is Joan King. I am the director of government affairs and advocacy with Diabetes Canada.

I would like to acknowledge that I am presenting today from Treaty 6 territory.

Diabetes Canada is a registered charitable organization that leads the fight against diabetes by preventing the onset and consequences of diabetes, helping those affected by diabetes to live healthy lives and working to find a cure. Diabetes Canada is the national voice for 11.9 million Canadians living with diabetes type 1 or type 2 or prediabetes.

Diabetes is a chronic illness in which the body has difficulty regulating the amount of glucose or sugar in the blood. Elevated levels of blood glucose over time can lead to heart attack, stroke, lower limb amputation, blindness and kidney failure requiring dialysis, to name a few. Diabetes complications are associated with premature death, reducing a person’s lifespan by five to 15 years. Properly managing diabetes reduces the risk of developing the complications of the disease.

It is estimated to cost $583 million to treat diabetes and its complications in British Columbia in 2023, and that figure will climb to $747 million by 2033. Thirty-two percent of British Columbia’s population, or one in three, live with diabetes or prediabetes. Over the next ten years, British Columbia is facing a 29 percent increase in diabetes prevalence.

The personal toll diabetes takes on individuals and their families is enormous, and the cost of diabetes and its complications to the health care system is not sustainable. Given the huge burden of diabetes in British Columbia, Diabetes Canada recommends ample resources be applied in Budget 2024 to the following two priority issues.

One is that in 2023, once again, British Columbia will pay an estimated $583 million in direct health care costs to treat diabetes and its complications. The catch is that most of the costs can be attributed to treating the complications in acute care settings. A commitment to a diabetes strategy to meet diabetes head-on should be a priority in British Columbia.

[3:40 p.m.]

The cost and prevalence trajectories are grim. Non-modifiable risk factors in type 2 diabetes include age, gen­der and ethnicity. These non-modifiable risk factors unfortunately work against British Columbia. The median age in British Columbia is 43 years, and 18.3 percent of British Columbians are over 65 years old. The risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases with age.

With an aging population and the exploding growth rates amongst at-risk populations, the prevalence and costs of diabetes in British Columbia continue to rise. While efforts are being made to address the diabetes epidemic in British Columbia, these efforts are not comprehensive enough. We recommend the province should have a road map for purposeful action, a comprehensive diabetes strategy to help develop and improve diabetes prevention, screening, treatment and health outcomes for the province.

Issue 2 is that diabetes is a complex and heterogeneous disease. Diabetes Canada believes that a diabetes management plan should always be individualized. British Columbia’s PharmaCare policy often reflects a one-size-fits-all approach, with many administrative and cost barriers to access to needed medications, devices and supplies.

Of course, the cost-saving reasons to…. Sorry, I’m skipping over a large portion because I’m running out of time.

Insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems are key examples where there is no choice for individuals with diabetes, for them as individuals and for their health care providers to choose the right treatment. Health care policy in these areas lends more to cost savings than it does to individual choice and the adequate treatment.

So the government of British Columbia…. We recommend that patients be put at the centre of policy decisions and that the government invest in reducing the current barriers to access evidence-based, personalized diabetes treatments, including diabetes medications, devices and supplies.

Thank you very much. I’ll just check my audio to see that I can…. There we go.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Joan, thank you for your presentation. Can you hear us?

J. King: Yes, I can hear you now. You may slip off again, and I’ll have to adjust it. So bear with me. Please go ahead.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Let’s just see if we can go slip-free.

S. Chant: Hi, there, Joan.

Are there other provinces that provide this stuff without cost?

J. King: I’m sorry. Can you repeat that? I apologize.

S. Chant: Are there other provinces in Canada that pro­vide these devices, supplies and medication at no cost to the client?

J. King: I’m sorry. I assume your question was related to costs in other provinces. I didn’t hear the whole thing, so I’ll just answer that quickly, if I may.

There are provinces across the country that offer a full selection, say, of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. So when an individual qualifies…. Of course, everybody has their criteria, and every province is different. But when an individual is approved for the public program, in most provinces, they have the choice of the device or the supply or the medication that they require to treat their individual needs. I hope that answers your question.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your presentation the second time around.

I have a friend who had experience having type 2 diabetes for a number of years and having difficulty controlling it. The thing that made the big difference in her life, apart from a medication that came along later, was a study that was done out of UBC. It was a mentorship partnership, where someone who had existing diabetes, someone with lived experience spending time looking at the lifestyle changes, those modifiable risk factors and the confidence in making changes…. I’m wondering if you could comment on that as one of the tools that can make a significant difference in outcomes.

[3:45 p.m.]

J. King: Absolutely. There are certainly many tools. Many of them exist out there, if not in British Columbia then across the provinces. There are some very successful nuggets of programs and delivery of the various tools that exist out there. The one you mention, of course, is probably a great tool.

But what we are, I guess, suggesting or recommending is that without a pathway, without a comprehensive strategy to address each of the pillars of diabetes that require attention — the prevention, the early screening…. Many people live with diabetes right now who aren’t diagnosed and therefore aren’t treating it. The treatments to keep people out of hospitals and to improve the health outcomes…. Without a strategy, we’re starting programs and starting different coverage. We’re here, there and everywhere with­out a concentrated effort with measurable outcomes to be achieved.

That, I guess, is one program that would probably successfully be integrated into a strategy if invested in a comprehensive [inaudible recording].

I hope that answers your question.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions or comments?

Joan, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. Unfortunately, the technical aspect of it doesn’t always work, and it becomes a little bit of a roller-coaster.

J. King: I’m sorry about the audio component. Better luck next year. Thank you so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Kane Tse, Health Sciences Association of British Columbia.

Kane, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

You have the floor.

HEALTH SCIENCES ASSOCIATION OF B.C.

K. Tse: My name is Kane Tse, and I’m president of the Health Sciences Association of B.C. Thank you for your time and attention today.

I know I only have five minutes, so I just want you to remember one thing today, and that is PET technologists. Let me explain. We all know that the health care system is in crisis right now, and we all know that there’s a dire need for more doctors and nurses. But it’s not just about doctors and nurses.

The government recently announced a major program to improve cancer care in B.C. Over $400 million is being invested to fix a terrible situation in which British Columbians who have a cancer diagnosis are facing dangerously long waits for treatment. The situation is so bad that we’re now forced to send some of these patients to the U.S. for treatment. The $400 million will make new investments in recruiting more cancer care professionals, like doctors who specialize in oncology, nurses who support treatment and health science professionals, like our radiation therapists, who do the actual treatment.

But the plan overlooked one small group of specialized health professionals: PET technologists, or positron emission tomography technologists. Now there are only 31 of them in the whole province, and in a few months, we’ll be down to 29 or less. Nobody in B.C. can start chemotherapy, radiation therapy or surgery until they have a PET scan. So the whole $400 million program to improve cancer care is bottlenecked by just 31 PET technologists.

Right now there’s an eight-week wait to get an urgent PET scan, but in a few months, with fewer PET technologists than we have now, those wait times are going to get longer. We’re losing PET technologists because they make much less money than other professions, and young people are going into those disciplines instead. So we need to invest quickly in measures to retain PET technologists that we currently have and to recruit new ones.

But it’s not just about PET technologists. That’s just one example. HSA is the union representing over 20,000 specialized health and community social service professionals in over 70 different professions. We’re hearing that there are critical shortages in many of them. We haven’t got enough medical lab technologists to keep up with the demand for diagnosis through blood and tissue testing.

[3:50 p.m.]

The medical imaging training that produces X-ray technologists, mammography technologists, CT technologists and others can train up to 80 people each year, but only 27 students have signed up. We’re desperately short of the respiratory therapists who keep you breathing when you have severe COVID or are breathing in that wildfire smoke. We have only half the dietitians needed to care for patients in northern communities. In B.C., we have the lowest number of physiotherapists per capita compared to the rest of Canada. It’s the same with lab technologists and medical radiation technologists.

Now, I could go on, but, really, the point is this: we have to invest in all the health professionals and not just doctors and nurses.

HSA’s submission outlines specific recommendations that would address these shortages. We need recruitment and retention incentives and funding to increase staffing levels so we can attract specialized professionals, prevent them from becoming burned-out and deliver the services needed on a timely basis.

We also need more post-secondary training seats with full tuition bursaries to attract more young people into these critical professions. We need to create a recruitment and retention incentive to bring health science professionals back into the public health care system from the private sector where many can make more money.

It’s not just happening in hospitals. In the child development sector, which supports over 15,000 kids in B.C. with special needs, we’re seeing similar shortages and wait times. We need a stable funding model for child development services to ensure the continuity of service for the families involved but also to attract the specialized professionals needed to deliver speech language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, social work and other key services. We need to address the procurement of these services, which, right now, encourages fragmented and privatized delivery of therapy.

I’m going to wrap it up here. There’s much more in our formal submission. I’m happy to take questions, but I want to leave you with this: that the money invested in attracting new doctors and nurses is absolutely essential. But if we don’t also invest in new specialized health professionals, like our PET technologists, the system will continue to fail.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation this afternoon, Kane.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation.

Just on recruitment and retention — $400 million. In the short term, are you suggesting just a wage lift for those specialists to stay here? Just a government subsidized wage lift? Then, in the medium term, I guess, it would be the training portion of it to get more technicians going. But is that the short term? Am I right on that?

K. Tse: Well, the $400 million is actually specifically for cancer care. But overall, we need to make these professions much more attractive as well.

Also, the long term is, as you mentioned, the training, because these are specialized professionals. They’re not something that we can get in a year or a couple of years, but they do undergo a number of years of training. In order to attract them to go into those programs, we do need to make the careers competitive with other jurisdictions across the country as well and, also, to make the careers attractive for them to go into them and invest their education into that as well at the post-secondary level.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions?

I have one for you. With regards to the training and the positions that are out there, are there spaces in our institutions for these people, future people, to be able to be enrolled in?

K. Tse: Well, as I mentioned earlier, in the imaging fields, you can see there are certainly spaces that are available. In other sectors, we are seeing waiting lists as well. We’ve heard of…. In some health authorities, for example, they send members to other regions of the province to access the spaces there, so that takes away from spaces in those regions as well. There is a demand for the spaces, and we would like to see them, as many as possible, to encourage people to get into these fields.

B. Stewart: That’s kind of what I was looking for. I just want to know how we can solve the problem. It’s not…. To retain is one thing. I think that’s what we’re looking for — ideas on a way to pass that up. But the spaces are the question I had. I’ve heard that from some of the sectors that you mentioned — lab technicians, dentists — they’re all struggling to retain some of these people.

K. Tse: Yes, that’s absolutely true. What I would also say is that the health care worker shortage is something we’re seeing across the entire country, if not, I would even say, in other countries as well.

[3:55 p.m.]

I think one of the important parts to remember is, also, that when we train these specialists, we want to make sure that they’re staying in B.C. and that they have attractive careers here and various, for example, tuition reimbursements as well, so that after they’ve trained here, they stay in B.C. and help to solve our problem here so that we’re not training people for other jurisdictions as well.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions? Not seeing any, Kane, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon and for enlightening us on where some of the technicians need to come from.

K. Tse: Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Nola Galloway, Independent Long-Term Care Councils Association of British Columbia.

Nola, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

You now have the floor.

INDEPENDENT LONG-TERM CARE COUNCILS
ASSOCIATION OF B.C.

N. Galloway: Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Nola Galloway, and I’m the president of the Independent Long-Term Care Councils Association of B.C. On behalf of our members, I thank you for this opportunity to present today.

During the pandemic, decisions were being made in long-term-care homes that left residents and their families feeling distraught and helpless. More now than ever before, they realized that they needed a guaranteed voice in the decisions being made in long-term-care homes, in the health authorities and in the Ministry of Health.

In early 2021, members of independent family councils from all across B.C. met to discuss the need for regional and provincial representation. Regional associations of family councils were established in every health authority in B.C. In early 2022, an independent provincial association of family councils was also established, its members being the five regional associations of family councils. The provincial association was incorporated as a non-profit society under the legal entity of Independent Long-Term Care Councils Association of B.C.

On November 3, 2022, we received fantastic news when the Ministry of Health announced changes to the regulatory language around the operations of independent resident and family councils in long-term-care homes. Finally, operators now were required, in regulation, to cooperate with and support the establishment of resident-led and family-led councils. The ministry also announced the creation of avenues to ensure that residents, their families and representatives could elevate their collective voice — not only to the long-term-care-home operator but also to the health authority and the Ministry of Health.

The provincial association and its five member regional associations aim to improve the long-term-care journey for residents and their families by assisting them to learn about, establish and maintain effective resident and family councils. These councils receive ongoing support from our regional association volunteers, who have lived experiences and a broad understanding of the long-term-care system, most having or having had a loved one residing in care. They can also assist and guide the long-term-care-home operators in ways that it can support the councils, thereby increasing the likelihood of a collaborative and respectful working relationship being formed between the operator and the council.

These experienced, hard-working volunteer members are an invaluable asset for long-term-care home councils, long-term-care home operators, health authorities, and the Ministry of Health. Although the provincial association has an incredible dedicated group of volunteers giving their time and energy to such a worthy cause, it is of the utmost importance to have quality oversight and management of the operations of our organization by qualified professionals. Without that, it is highly likely that our volunteers would be overloaded with responsibility, become overwhelmed and burn out.

We applied for funding through the government of B.C., and we’re extremely grateful to receive grant project funding for the 2023 government fiscal year to assist the Ministry of Health with our shared goal of enhancing the voice of long-term-care residents and families. The Ministry of Health uses our organization as an important partner, a stakeholder in the long-term-care sector and a valuable resource for the development and maintenance of independent councils in long-term-care homes.

While we have not yet received a detailed list of councils currently operating in long-term-care homes across B.C., we are of the understanding that very few councils meet the new regulation requirements. Rather, of the many councils that do operate in long-term-care homes, the vast majority are staff-led and staff-chaired. Under the new regulation, all those councils need to be transitioned from staff-led to resident-led and family-led.

[4:00 p.m.]

It involves a great deal of time and effort to transition and establish new councils. There are some 300 publicly subsidized long-term-care homes across B.C. So there is a tremendous amount of work to be undertaken by our regional association volunteers to assist the Ministry of Health with our council initiative. The goal is to one day have a family-led and a resident-led council in every long-term-care home in B.C.

I want to emphasize that this is a long-term process, not something that can be completed in a year. Our executive director will create a five-year plan to establish, develop, standardize and implement across the province.

Our ask is for our government to commit to ongoing financial support in the 2024 budget year for the Independent Long-Term Care Councils Association of B.C. to be able to continue its good work to ensure residents, their families and representatives have a collective voice in decisions that affect their lives and help shape B.C.’s long-term-care system.

Our second topic speaks to the need for long-term-care reform and national long-term-care standards. Never has there been more urgency and public support to reform and improve the way care is provided and how quality of life is supported in long-term-care homes.

Our ask is for the B.C. government to strike a diverse and inclusive multisectoral advisory forum using the recommendations in the Action for Reform of Residential Care’s report called Improving Quality of Life in Long-term Care: A Way Forward and the recommendations in the HSO national long-term care standard to develop a plan for a long-term-care system that all British Columbians can embrace.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, Nola.

Are there any questions from the committee?

A. Walker: Thank you, Nola.

These councils are incredibly valuable. When we work with constituents in long-term care…. To know they have a voice in the operations of the facilities they call home is very important. So I appreciate your advocacy.

Your first — I believe it’s your first — recommendation is to commit to ongoing financial supports for your association. What would that look like on an ongoing basis?

N. Galloway: What it would look like, probably, is…. We figure about $400,000 a year. We feel this will extend over four to five years, in order to get the councils built right across B.C.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Are there any other questions from the committee?

Nola, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. Equally as important, thank you for the work you do on behalf of the clients that are out there. As Adam has just pointed out, it’s important work. When constituents come and speak to us in our offices, it’s nice to have the peace of mind that there is somebody that’s out there that is looking after their better interests.

Thank you very much for the work that you do.

N. Galloway: Thank you so much. Thanks for hearing me today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Robin Prest, the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue.

You have five minutes for your presentation, followed by up to five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Robin, the floor is yours.

MORRIS J. WOSK CENTRE FOR DIALOGUE

R. Prest: Good day to you. I’m Robin Prest. I’m the program director at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University.

I’m here with you today to suggest and bring forward the proposal that British Columbia create a fund to support strengthening democratic participation. We think that’s important for a couple of reasons.

One, we think that it’s really important, at this moment in time, to promote democratic innovation within British Columbia — be that for our local governments, non-profits, other decision-making bodies — especially those types of democratic innovations that bring high-quality, actionable feedback from the public and impacted groups into decision-making processes, such as citizens’ assemblies or civic technology or other forms of innovation.

[4:05 p.m.]

We also think it’s very important to invest in civic education and the types of new forms of civic education that are becoming available and those types of civic education that can create the muscle memory that allows youth and residents to really understand what it means to be active citizens.

Finally, in the three priorities we have suggested for the fund, we suggest that there be an emphasis on bringing in the voices of underheard groups, equity-seeking communities, to support the province’s goals of making sure that everybody who is impacted by a decision has a say.

As we’re describing the idea of democratic participation, I want to differentiate that from just the classic notion of democracy, which tends to focus on voting. In B.C., we have very strong democratic institutions. Canada as a whole rates very well for democratic indices around things like our voting system, our parliaments, our legislatures. It’s really the idea of people and participation that animates those institutions.

What we’re most concerned about is: do people feel seen and heard through decisions that affect their lives? Are those groups who are most impacted involved? And do communities understand the reasons behind those decisions that come forward, such that they’re willing to accept them and feel like they’re part of them?

The flip side to that is that when there is not a strong sense of democratic participation, folks feel often more subject to misinformation, anti-democratic populist messaging, scapegoating minorities.

In particular, I would say that in our work we see two really important variables that support strong democratic culture.

One is that sense of efficacy, the idea of: “If I try, can I make a difference?” And that decision-makers are keeping folks like me in mind when they’re making decisions.

The second is a sense of belonging, a sense of connectedness to others and all being in this together. I’ll give two examples of why that’s important. When we had the heat dome two years ago, we had hundreds of deaths across British Columbia. It was those folks who had a strong sense of belonging and connectedness who helped their neighbours or were helped by their neighbours. Similarly, in the wildfire situations we’re seeing right now in B.C., it’s folks who feel like they’re part of decision-making processes or feel a sense of confidence in government that are more likely to obey evacuation orders rather than gravitate towards online conspiracy theories.

These issues aren’t just trivial or theoretical. They can actually apply in real life-and-death situations. I want to emphasize that B.C. is a trail-blazer in this area. When the OECD brought out its landmark report about the deliberative wave of citizens’ assemblies and other processes that are sweeping across many democracies — that started here in British Columbia.

We have a huge civic tech movement. We have non-profits like CityHive that are reimagining and reinventing what civic education can look like. And we have a lot of local governments that are implementing processes like GBA-plus, gender-based analysis, supporting the implementation of UNDRIP and the Declaration Act.

There’s a lot that’s right and a lot of innovations and assets and evidence-based and proven processes we can draw from. But I would say that they’re not yet the norm. They’re not yet standard within British Columbia. So the idea of having a fund to support this type of innovation would help to normalize those types of processes and raise the bar for how we work.

An important reference point in this conversation is the cost of an election. It costs about $50 million to hold an election in British Columbia, which is, again, a very im­portant feature in our democracy. If we were to take a fraction of that, let’s say 10 percent of that, that would mean $5 million that could be an annual expenditure towards this type of fund. I put that forward as something that I think is a small expense with a huge payoff to help us get through future challenges together all in the same direction.

Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, Robin.

Questions from the committee?

Maybe I’ll start off by saying I’m looking at investing in civics education and that capacity. What do you believe…? I mean, we’ve had another presenter from North Vancouver, and I don’t recall what the gentleman’s name was, but that was a similar topic that was there. So how do you see this unfolding?

R. Prest: Yeah. One innovation we’re tracking right now that’s being used in Scotland and Portugal and New York state and a little bit in the Burnaby school district right now is called participatory budgeting in schools.

[4:10 p.m.]

What that means is you put up, let’s say, $2,000 or $5,000 in the high school, and you tell the students they get to develop the ideas for how that money is spent. They get to vote on whose idea should move forward, and they get to implement those ideas. Rather than doing a mock voting exercise where you pretend to vote during an election and your vote doesn’t actually count for anything, you’re actually learning and getting the positive feedback loops of “your vote matters,” and you actually made a change and were successful in making a change within your community.

That’s the type of modern civic engagement processes that we’re really excited about.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for that.

A. Walker: Thank you, Robin. I feel fortunate to live in a community where…. I mean, a lot of active seniors in Parksville-Qualicum, high voter turnout. I’m very fortunate to have them participate through my office.

How do you see getting in front of those people from, say, 25 to 55 who aren’t really engaged in the process? Whether it’s through where you work or just in general, how do you see to get people involved in the political process?

R. Prest: First of all, there has to be something on the table. There has to be a meaningful opportunity for their voices to make a difference, and we’re typically quite poor at that, I would say, within most large government organizations. Often there’s not a clarity as far as how people’s voices will impact a decision. So that’s one.

Two is we go to where the people are. We don’t ask them to come to us. So that means showing up in community spaces and really making sure that we’re building relationships and hearing from people directly.

The other aspect, I would say, is that often the processes that we create aren’t helpful by design. Public hearings are a great example of that, where you have people lining up at microphones shouting at each other because the format encourages that. So we create spaces that create empathy where people can hear from each other and exchange perspectives, disagree in a respectful manner, find agreement and find consensus using evidence, using the lived experience they bring from their communities.

That type of process can be transformative. We saw that in Burnaby when we worked with the city of Burnaby on housing and used deliberative dialogue as a way to create a consensus for a pathway forward.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions?

R. Leonard: Thanks for coming and presenting today.

I guess my question is…. You’re presenting to the budget consultation committee, and I’m curious about your perspective on us as part of trying to increase democratic participation.

R. Prest: That’s a wonderful question. I appreciate you asking that. Certainly, I would say, when it comes to budget, there’s a barrier. You need to be somebody perhaps in a situation like I am, where I’m paid to do this work, to be able to create a presentation or to even understand how to access the system. So it’s definitely a process more geared towards stakeholders and folks who have those resources.

I suspect that if we really wanted to hear from British Columbians in a more organic way, there would have to be a really clear ask and understanding of what’s possible. Whether or not it was trying to decide between different funding priorities or how to raise more revenues or whatever those questions are, there are high-quality processes you could do and use for that.

For instance, citizens assemblies can be a really fantastic way to bring a group of representative members of the public up to speed, have them learn and put themselves in your shoes so that they understand the constraints of a problem and then create recommendations that reflect their values and reflect the experiences they bring from their lives into those ideas. So there are ways of doing it, certainly.

I also respect that finance is a fairly tightly held part of government and a really important function. So I appreciate all the work you do and the accountability you bring to your work in making those decisions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for that and, Robin, thank you for your presentation this afternoon and the work that you do to invigorate those people that are out there.

R. Prest: Thank you all so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Faye Ying, GLOCAL Foundation of Canada.

Faye, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Faye, the floor is yours.

GLOCAL FOUNDATION OF CANADA

F. Ying: Good afternoon, members of the B.C. Legislature. Thank you for the opportunity for me to present to your committee.

I’m the founder and executive director of GLOCAL Foundation of Canada. We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit, youth-led organization that promotes digital civic engagement.

I understand the time limit of five minutes. Therefore, I will quickly summarize my presentation in two parts.

[4:15 p.m.]

One is to give you the example of GLOCAL and to understand and address needs for non-partisan democratic funding.

What do we do? We are a B.C. start-up NGO, and the reason we deliberately make it an NGO is because of the nature of our work. We actually are very focused on digital products and services development. That’s why we have been receiving some funding from Innovate B.C. and Mitacs in the past three years, but the funding is very limited for our digital products and services development.

To quickly illustrate our vision and to give you an ex­ample of what we actually want to do…. I bet all of you have been using products like Uber or Uber Eats. We would like to draw a parallel with the popular services provided by Uber Eats. We aim to offer the same level of convenience and act as a talent incubator also, of course, for civic engagement.

Long story short, through our user-friendly mobile application and website, citizens will have access to information from legislators and governments, the ability to ask questions, make requests, engage in educational games, participate in e–town halls, receive legislative updates and contribute to the last-mile delivery of civic knowledge, especially at the three levels of government, not just at one level or one region. It does sound a bit ambitious, but we did budget a timeline of 20 years for this initiative.

How do we do it? The operation model was to actually make it a youth-led project. Instead of having youth being the recipients of the products, we actually empower them to be the construction workers, architects, service designers, engineers and queries who can bridge the gap between the government websites, the textbooks, the publications and all the way to the end-users.

Currently, thanks to federal government funding from ESDC, Employment and Social Development Canada, we’re able to employ, create, 33 full-time work opportunities for young Canadians, and we currently have 500 volunteers nationwide. To elaborate, by leveraging the digital tools, that’s how we make it happen. But definitely, the federal government funding is not adequate. Also, currently it’s not very sustainable, so we’re looking for more long-term, sustainable funding for that.

Four specific youth groups we actually target. Youth of immigrant and refugee backgrounds. I think they need a lot of support in understanding Canadian politics, in knowing the ways they can get involved.

The second group is youth from remote or rural regions, such as northern B.C. and some rural areas in B.C., be­cause they typically don’t have the same level of opportunities as other parts of the country.

The third group is youth with special needs. We have been working with Douglas College to help their autistic kids to get on this work opportunity.

The fourth group will be overseas Canadian youth that have been sort of disconnected with our democratic institutions. Hopefully, the online working opportunity will be helpful for them.

Three recommendations. We actually support the proposal for a fund strengthening democratic participation in B.C., as put forward by civil society organizations as well as the SFU Centre for Dialogue and the UBC Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions.

First recommendation. We really need, a pressing need, support for social innovations and youth participation to enhance specific information accessibility and overall engagement.

Second, the urgent need to foster youth civic participation, especially among the marginalized groups, especially those from remote regions of diverse needs. Those factors have hindered their ability to engage fully in civic affairs and access related services.

The third recommendation would be the critical funding requirements for non-partisan civic engagement work and social integration as essential for strengthening our democracy.

In conclusion, I thank you for giving me this opportunity and am eager to anticipate any questions or fuller discussion you may have. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Faye, for your presentation this afternoon.

Questions?

Okay, Faye, I am looking around the room, and I’m getting this stare at me like, no, they don’t have any questions and/or comments.

[4:20 p.m.]

I think part of it will be because of Robin, who was presenting just prior to you with very similar requests for the suggestions that were there.

I’m looking around.

R. Leonard: I’ll take a stab at this.

First of all, what does GLOCAL stand for? I’m assuming it’s an acronym or jamming a couple of words together.

The second question is: as you were talking, I was thinking…. Are you talking about ChatGPT? Like, artificial intelligence. I’m just curious about that sort of process that you were talking about early on.

F. Ying: So GLOCAL means…. It’s glocalization. We believe we need global understanding and local engagement past the globalization period. I think, for example, even with the homelessness issue we’re dealing with, we’re researching on, we also need to draw in more global perspectives into local issues.

Our platform has been really our team of youth. Every day, we’re looking at what the useful tools are and how this could be relevant to us in terms of promoting civic engagement. We’re trying to use all those AI tools that are relevant. We’re trying to create like an Uber Eats, that kind of convenience. So all in one place.

I think the government has all the wonderful information, but it really sometimes is difficult for youth or other newcomers to digest a lot of the information. The tradi­tional civic engagement, in a way, to join physical town hall meetings has been actually more and more challenging. Door-knocking in those traditional neighborhoods has been challenging.

We’re trying to be very innovative in problem-solving here.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Are there any other comments?

H. Yao: How are you doing, Faye? Long time, no see.

F. Ying: Well, thank you, Henry. We probably have sent out to all the MLAs offices since 2020. Thank you to Henry’s office for replying to our youth requests.

H. Yao: I just wondered. Have you approached Elections B.C. about it, and have they given you any feedback in regards to, maybe, potential collaboration by supporting British Columbian youth to be better engaged in democracy?

F. Ying: Yes. We have been not only closely in discussion with Elections B.C. but also Elections Canada. We are in the process of discussing, but we’re really running out of funding. So that’s why we’re here to present this.

H. Yao: If you don’t mind me having a follow-up question, how much money are you seeking, actually?

F. Ying: I’m not sure whether it’s appropriate for me to say that from the federal government, we’re actually receiving about $1 million. But 90 percent of funding goes to employing the 33 youth, some legal fees — we take privacy and all that legal compliance very seriously — and also accounting, auditing. All these expenses.

Thanks to digital platforms, we don’t have rent. We don’t have physical offices. We really, dramatically, cut off all those expenses.

H. Yao: If you don’t mind me following up with one final question, what kind of strides have you made in regard to approaching ethnic communities, especially ethnic newcomers, in regard to democratic engagement?

F. Ying: Well, you would be amazed. Right now, we have 500 youth. About half of them are refugee communities. About 100 of them are actually from immigrant backgrounds.

I think a lot of them really value this opportunity. They joined GLOCAL and did not expect that civic engagement, understanding Canadian politics, would be so fun. We do lots of trivia. How many time zones are there? Did you know that this happens here? It’s not like serious political work, but fun engagement.

Last year I drove all the way from B.C. to Ottawa. So all the team, hundreds of them, were working on the road trip support, understanding localities — every locality I drove through along the Trans-Canada highway. So we’re very exciting.

We wrote to the Queen, by the way. We’re planning to write to the King again.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Faye, thank you very much for your presentation. A drive to Ottawa is a daunting task in itself, let alone without a support group. So thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

[4:25 p.m.]

Our next presenter is Scott Braley, Curl B.C.

Scott, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Scott, you have the floor.

CURL B.C.

S. Braley: Thanks. I’m sure it’s been a long day for you.

Hello, everyone, and thanks for having me back again this year. My name is Scott Braley. I have been involved with the management of the B.C. sport system for over 50 years, first as a volunteer and coach and then, for the past 38 years, as a full-time staff person and volunteer. Currently I am the CEO of Curl B.C., the provincial sport governing body for curling and adaptive curling.

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge I am speaking to you on the ancestral and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓- and Squamish-speaking peoples.

I would like to speak to you today about two things: leadership and inspiration. Surely, this is what the organized sports system brings to B.C.

I’m going to start with a story. Thirty years ago, I was elected to the Sport B.C. board for the first time. We were immediately faced with a challenge. The previous board had announced a great new program, but we quickly realized it was financially unsustainable. There had been a commitment that 100 percent of all donations would be spent on the program, and there was nothing allocated to cover management and administration. This meant the program would only last a year or two. We made some adjustments to ensure every contributor understood that costs needed to be covered, and the program flourished.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the name of the program was KidSport. I was so pleased to hear, a few weeks ago, that more than 80,000 kids in B.C. have now been funded for a season of sport through KidSport. Thanks to $19 million in donations since the program’s inception, it has become a national entity with operations in 11 provinces and territories, with 160 community chapters.

The leadership shown by the Sport B.C. board all those years ago in the face of financial challenges has made a difference in the lives of several generations of B.C. children. You will get to hear firsthand about the inspiration the program has generated when Katelynn Ramage of KidSport B.C. speaks to you on Thursday.

On a larger scale, the over 80 provincial and multisport organizations led by Sport B.C. are asking the budget consultation committee to demonstrate leadership by recommending an increase of $5 million per year to core funding of B.C.’s sport system. This funding has not been increased since 2010, so organizations are being stretched beyond their capacity to run championships, events, camps, clinics and educational programs, let alone spend time on innovation to ensure more people become involved. Throw in the need to plan for the renewal and eventual replacement of aging facilities, and the system is beyond being overtaxed.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the provincial government for all the one-time funding it has provided over the past three years to help the system recover from COVID — very much appreciated. However, it is very difficult to develop multi-year plans to build the system when core funding does not keep pace with the cost of inflation.

One more story from the present day. I just returned from Chilliwack, where 60 delegates from 26 curling cen­tres joined us for a Business of Curling Symposium weekend. Topics included the future of volunteerism, coaching, inclusion, digital marketing, recruiting, retaining funding, pricing, financial planning and curling itself.

In collaboration with Curling Canada, experts were brought in from across the country to speak about each of these topics. These inspiring educational and team-building events simply would not occur for community clubs without the organization and support of provincial and national sport organizations working together.

[4:30 p.m.]

As someone who has been around almost as long as Methuselah, I strongly endorse the request by Sport B.C. for additional core funding and want to express my admiration of and commendation to all the amazing people in B.C.’s sport system who make life better for us all.

I hope this helps.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Scott, for your presentation.

I thought when you were talking about Methuselah, you were talking about Tom, but I guess not. He’s sitting here taking it willingly.

Henry, you’re first up.

H. Yao: Scott, I haven’t seen you for a while. Thank you so much for doing a presentation to the Finance Committee. I do want to say that I really appreciate what you did at Richmond Curling Club, especially international competition.

Could you give us a little bit of background for us to appreciate — I had a similar conversation with the Richmond guns and rods club — how a lot of niche sports, such as curling and archery, are now missing out because they cannot out-compete, without the proper funding, against sensationalism-driven, like social media or just doing TikTok videos? What can we do to draw an increased interest in those niche sports?

S. Braley: Very nice to see you again, Henry. Just to let you know, there were city of Richmond people at the symposium listening to the future of curling. I would recommend an educational symposium like that on the business of whatever sport to be done.

We do have to change our approach. You can’t just stay status quo. That often involves further investment, but often it involves just changing approach. I think everybody left thinking: “Oh yeah, we know what to do now.”

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments and/or questions?

I do have one for you, Scott. You talked about adaptive curling. Could you just expand on the growth, I assume, of adaptive curling?

S. Braley: Well, we’re involved in about five different forms of adaptive curling: wheelchair, blind, deaf, Special Olympics and even stick curling. There was a lot of conversation about stick curling with the wheelchair curlers just this past weekend. This synergy that occurs when able-bodied then transfer over to having to use the stick and then they’re beside a wheelchair curler…. It was quite amazing to see how that works together.

The growth. You don’t tend to have large numbers, but the fact that the sport is very adaptive is a reason we say why it needs to be in every community. Does that help?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Hey, Scott, thanks for the presentation. Thanks for the advocacy for sports in B.C. I really, truly believe it’s the foundational element of what keeps society whole. When kids grow up with sport, they learn so many fundamental skills that carry them through life. Obviously, the camaraderie that you know through curling and everything else is forever. Thanks a lot for that.

Keep doing what you’re doing, I guess. My only regret is you’re not producing enough Brier participants from the Kootenays.

S. Braley: Yeah. They’re still well involved, though, Tom. Great to see you, and thank you. You’re very like-minded there.

M. Starchuk (Chair): I’m sure the Comox Valley is producing a ton.

H. Yao: Scott, thank you so much for answering our Chair’s question. It just reminded me. When you were hosting in the Richmond Curling Club, it was a diverse ability competition for the curling game. It’s bringing a lot of international attention to Richmond and to British Columbia. What can we do to actually really foster this kind of international attention to allow British Columbia to take a leadership role in this accessible and affordable curling opportunity?

S. Braley: You’ve reminded me of something I wanted to say — just to thank the province for the major hosting grant program.

We got $60,000 to help do that event Henry’s referencing, which was a combination of the World Wheelchair Curling Championships and the new World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Championships. Richmond, B.C. was the first community in the world to host that event together.

I would say the continuation of the major event hosting program and also an expansion of the Hosting B.C. program too. We’re running probably ten major events a year. Then our clubs are running probably 300 bonspiels. There’s a lot of activity, and that’s what people love so much about sport: when they can get together and do these events.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, Scott, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. Thank you for the group that you’re out there representing on a daily basis.

S. Braley: Thanks for all you’re doing, and thanks for listening.

M. Starchuk (Chair): A motion to go in camera?

S. Chant: Can we have a recess?

M. Starchuk (Chair): A motion to go in camera, please?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yeah, so moved.

M. Starchuk (Chair): So moved. Okay.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 4:35 p.m. to 5:41 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 5:41 p.m.